The House Of Atreus

TEXT FLY WITHIN
THE BOOK ONLY

cS>- rop

B]<OU 160290 >m
>* ~ ?}%

THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

ORESTES TAKING RErUGE AT THE OMPHALOS
M.llm.lVn.lHH"..!.-^-. -Ann,,.,,- V,,l H IM OH

THE

HOUSE OF ATREUS

BEING

THE AGAMEMNON, LIBATION-BEARERS
AND FURIES Or ^RSCHYLUS

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE BY

E. D. A. MORSHEAD, M.A.

LA li FELLOW OF NEW COLLKGE, OXFORD
ASSISTANT MASTER OF WINCHESTER COLLEGR

Some mourning words, which in our feeble tongue
Would come in these like accents ; O how frail
To that large utterance of the early gods !

Hyperion

HonlJon
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN" COMPANY

All rights reserved

' DEDICATED TO

EDWARD CHARLES WICKHAM

iv

PREFACE

^SCHYLUS, son of Euphorion, an Athenian of the
deme of Eleusis, was born, B.C. 525. He consecrated
his life cO the tragic art from his youth upwards : yet
he is held to have been a valiant soldier, and with his
brother Cynegirus to have fought at Marathon, and
at Salamis, and at Plataea as some say. Afterwards,
being at variance with the Athenians, he went away
from them unto Sicily, and dwelt at the court of
Hiero, tyrant of Gela, and was held by him in high
honour. He died in his sixty-ninth year by a strange
fate, whereof he had been warned in an oracle, saying
A stroke from heaven shall slay thee. For as he was
walking on the shore, an eagle, that had snatched up
a tortoise into the air, let it drop ; and it fell upon
him, and he died.

Such is almost all that we are told, and more than
we can be said to know certainly, of the life of the
poet, whose masterpiece I have done my best to
render into English verse, with the hope of helping

viii THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

one or two of those to whom the original is a closed
book, to share in its treasures.

The remaining fragments of tradition the cause
of his quarrel with his countrymen the statement
that he divulged the Sacred Mysteries remain not
now to be verified. Of those given above, the
tale of his death has been preserved for its striking
singularity : it has th authority of story, and no
more. To his familiarity with war, by la.-d and sea,
his surviving dramas bear the strongest witness.
There is a priori likelihood, and intrinsic evidence,
and some external testimony, of nis having shared
in one or more of the great battles which saved the
western world. Nor does his departure from Athens
to whatever cause it was due nor his residence,
apparently on two separate occasions, in Sicily, admit
of doubt. A vague statement l that his poetry was
inspired by wine?, portraiture of him by the pen of
Aristophanes in the Frogs (intended, as, I am con-
vinced, those of Euripides and Socrates by the same
hand were intended, mainly as a literary portrait of
the author and teacher, not a delineation of the man
as he was) ; some notices 2 from Aristotle of the
improvements introduced by him into the arrange-
ments of the dramatic stage : these, and a few others,
form the whole of our scanty information respecting
the life of ^Eschylus, son of Euphorion. Stat magni
nominis umbra.

1 Athen. x, p. 428, F.

2 Poet. 4, Hor. A. P. /. 278 ; Themistius Or. 26.

PREFACE ix

Of his works there remain to us seven dramas
only, out of a very large number. Fragments or
notices bring up the total to seventy-eight plays of
whicu the titles are known. If we can judge of those
we Lave not, in any decree, by there which we have,
and many of the fragments lead us towards such
an estimate, the chaos of lost things holds no equal
t^easur j : but it is not now to oe reset ed ; in his own
words

lv dftrrots reKtdovros otfrts dX*d.

Perhaps a list of the surviving dramas may be useful
to t^ose wishing to form an idea of the poet's scope
and range.

These play<= (in tb~ chronological order that seems
most probable) are

I. The Suppliant Maidens.

The Scene is laid at Argos.
II. The Prometheus Bound.

The Scene is on a Scythian peak, looking
down from afar upon the Euxine.

III. The Persians.

Scene The Tomb of Darius at Susa y the
treasure city of the King of Persia.

IV. The Seven against Thebes.

Scenj, the City of Thebes in BoeoKx.

{V. The Agamemnon,
VI. The Libation-Bearers.
VII. The Furies.

Of these three last plays, which form a cousecutl.^
whole, called a Trilogy, and yet are individually

x THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

complete, the scene is Argos or Mycenae: 1 afterwards,
the Temple of Apollo at rfelphi : lastly, the Acropolis
and Areopagus at Athens.

Of an Athenian Trilogy (i.e., -a combination o<"
three dramas by the same liarAi, whether on the same
or different subjects, for consecutive presentment on
the same day, and followed by a lighter play called a
Satyric Drama;, there remains to us this solitaiy
specimen : of the Satyric Drama, the Cyclops of
Euripides, familiar to English -eaders by Shelley's
translation.

It may be added, to explain the apparent diffi alty
of listening continuously to three dramas, each in
itself a perfect whole, that, in the first place, a whole
day of leisure, and not the few last hours, between
work or play, and sleep, of an exhausted audience,
was devoted to the Theatre ; and secondly, that the

1 Argos and Mycenae are in reality about six miles apart, in
the great /cotXoj> "Ap'yos, wide valley of Argolis. The relics of
the dynasty of Atreus are undoubtedly at Mycenae. ^Eschylus
however calls the scene, always, Argos ; not caring to
particularise about a district so well known. The fact that he
describes the beacon fire on Mount Arachne as visible to the
palace need not lead us to conclude that he had Argos more in
mind than Mycenae : though the mountain is visible (if I
remember right) from Larissa, the citadel of Argos, and not
(I am sure) from tue Acropolis of Mycenae. The beacon-glare
would have been clearly seen from either, no doubt. But
^Eschylus ignores such detail : as Mr. Clark (Peloponnesus, p.
7O N remai" s, every Athenian saw daily from his own hills the
peak of Arachne 10 the south, and knew it looked upon the
region of Argos : and this was enough for the poet.

PREFACE xi

whole length of the three plays combined, which form
this Trilogy, is rather less than that of Hamlet, I do
not say that they worM not necessarily take longer
to u:t than Hamlet: but merely that the intellectual
straLi, to an appreciative audience, would not neces-
sanly be greater. Change of interest, not mere rest,
is the essential relaxation of the mind, and this, which
Fhakenpeare provides, e.g., by the soliloquies of
Hamlet, tue Greek dramatists, and pre-eminently
^Eschylus, provided by the Choric Odes, or chants
inserted between the several episodes of the play.
Of such Odes, this Trilogy, and especially the
Agamemnon, presents to us the noblest surviving
specimens. They ^ay be regarded as the poet's
profoundest musings on the moral and religious and
historical problems suggested by the mythical tale
which forms the groundwork of his drama.

Of the grandeur, the preternatural effect, of these
musings, while the imminent doom is preparing, no
words of explanation or translation can give an
adequate account. If it is lawful to adopt words
written for a very different purpose by a poet in
whom survives more of the spirit of ^Eschylus than
in any other modern one might say of these choric
odes, "The, are as a pause, a breathing-space, a
curtain behind which God, the gr^at scene-shifter,
prepares the last and supreme act of the mighty
drama. Listen, how, in the deep shadow behind, a
dull and heavy sound is waxing ! Listen, what foot-
step is that which passes to and fro ? Look ! how

xii THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

the curtain sways and waves and trembles before the
breath of that which is behind ! " l

Of the mythical tale, well known as 'it is, which
forms the groundwork of this Trilogy, some slight
sketch may be useful.

Atreus and Tnyestes, sorts of f Pelops, fled from
their father and dwelt at Argos with Eurystheus the
the king thereof : and when he* died, Atreus 2 ruled
in his place, and wedded his daughter. B"t Thyestes
wronged his brother's wife, and was banished from
Argos. And after a while he returned again, aid
clung unto the altar at Argos ; and Atreus, fearing to
slay him, devised this deed. He slew certain ot the
children of Thyestes, and bade him to a banquet, and
gave him to eat of his own children's rlesh : and he
ate, knowing not what it was. But when he knew
what was done, he spake a bitter curse upon the
house of Atreus. thnt they should all perish by a
doom like that of his own children. And there befel
these woes unto that house, that for three generations
the curse of murder departed not away, For the
children of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus,
wedded the daughters of Leda, Clytemnestra and

1 V. Hugo, Napoleon le Petit, ch. last.

2 The position of Pleisthenes in the family ^f Atreus seems
doubtful, though the lineage is twice called by his name. (Ag.
II. 1569, 1602). Aireus is distinctly called father of Agamem-
non (/. 1561), yet tradition rather holds that Pleisthenes was
son of Atreus and father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, but,
dying your rr , left his children to the care of their grandfather
\treus.

PREFACE xiii

Helen : and afterwards Paris the son of Priam, being
the guest of Menelaus, did bear away Helen his
queen unto Troy. And Agamemnon and Menelaus
went forth to vengeance against Paris and Troy.
Lut Artemis was \\roth with the brothers, and forbade
their ships to sail ; and they lay at Aulis many days.
Then Calchas the prophet proclaimed that they should
not go fo**th, unless Agamemron should offer up his
daughter I^higenia in sacrifice unto Artemis. And
the king was unwilling so to do : yet for his oath's
sake, and for his brother and the captains of the fleet,
he consented, arm offered up his daughter : and the
fleet sailed. And they besieged Troy for nine years,
and in the tenth year it fell.

But Clytemncstra, the wife of Agamemnon, was
wroth because of her daughter's death ; and she did
evil with ^Egisthus, the youngest son of Thyestes ;
and they plotted to murder A^air^mnon when he
should return, and sent away his son Orestes unto
Strophius, king of Phocis, that he might not know
what they did. And when Agamemnon came back
from Troy Clytemnestra received him gladly, and led
him into the palace : and as he was bathing himself,
she flung over him a net, and smote him, and he
died : and Clytemnestra and ^Egisthus ruled in Argos.

But Orestes heard of his father's wrongful death,
and went unto the oracle of Delphi to enquire thereof,
and Apollo bade him avenge his father, and not spare
his own mother but slay her. And secretly he came
to Argos, bearing feigned news of his own death in

xiv THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

Phocis, and so came into the palace of his father
again, and slew his mother Clytemnestraand^Egisthus.
Then was he distraught and m ,ddened by the Furies,
in revenge for Clytemnestra's slaying : ana he
wandered over the earth, seeking purification fo* 1 his
deed, but the Furies followed him. At last he came
to the temple of Delphi, and clung to the altar : and
the God cast a deep sleep over the Furies, and bar'e
him fly to Athens, where he should find safety. But
the ghost of Clytemnestra arose from the shades and
awoke the Furies, and they followed him, and were
wroth with Apollo. And they held dispute on the
Acropolis, and Athena bade certain of the men of
Athens decide the cause with Inr. And in the end
they proclaimed tiie deed of Orestes to have been
rightly done, and the guilt of matricide to have been
wiped away. Then the Furies were angered with
Athena and her leuid : but Athena promised them
great honour from the Athenians, and a sacred
dwelling place in the land, even a cave beneath
Areopagus ; and they were appeased, and were called
no more Furies, but Gracious Goddesses. And
Orestes went back unto his father's kingdom, and the
curse of blood upon the house of Atreus was stayed. 1
It will, be obvious, even from a compendium like

1 I have ventured to give to the whole Trilogy the title of
The House of Atreus as the name most applicable to all three
parts. The older name Oresteia seems to me to have meant,
h. Aristophanes (F.rogs t 1124), The Libation-Bearers only: it
is hardly applicable to the Agamemnon.

PREFACE xv

the foregoing, that the myth is an epic in itself: and
regarding ^Fschylus' treatment of it as a whole, we
may discern a special propriety in the poet's recorded
saying, that his dramas were "scraps from the lordly
feast of Homer." I have sometimes fancied that an
interesting parallel might be drawn between the three
parts of the Trilogy, and the three divisions of the
Dlrina Commedia. For we have in loth, the same
central idea ; the succesrion, that is, of guilt, atone-
ment, absolution. Dante fixes his epic in the future
world, ^Eschylus in the present ; but mutatis mutandis,
substituting the deepest religious thought of Athens
for that of the middle ages, the most shadowy and
gigantic visior of ret/ibutory forces for the clearest
and most distinct we shall find the parallel curiously
suggestive, to say the least, of the essential unity of
moral speculation. The first part of the Trilogy, the
drama Agamemnon, takes up the above myth at the
point where Agamemnon's return from Troy is being
anxiously awaited at Argos, in the tenth year of the
war. The first choric ode recalls some of the previous
history, dwelling particularly on the circumstances of
the sacrifice of Iphigenia. Then follows the appear-
ance of the Herald, and of Agamemnon ; the
treacherous vv elcome of Clytemnestra ; the prophecy
of Cassandra, daughter of Priam, nc N a captive in
Agamemnon's train ; the murder of the king, and
Clytemnestra's savage exultation over his body and
that of Cassandra. With the appearance of /^gistlr^,
ard his avowal of his plot and motives, the drama

xvi THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

closes, leaving Clytemnestra and her paramour in
supreme power over Argos.

The second part, called the Thoephoroi, or Libation-
Bearers from the duty imposed upon the chorus of
pouring libations on Agamemnon's tomb opens with
the secret return of Orestes, the mutual recognition
of himself and his sister Electra, and their invocation
of the sleepless spirit of their father to'a'd their
planned revenge. Then Orestes, asbaming the
character of a Phocian stranger, recounts to Clytem-
nestra a feigned tale of his own death in that land.
Then, received into the palace, lie slays ^gisthus
and Clytemnestra, and avows his commission from
Apollo to the deed. But already his " are but wild
and whirling word", " ; and, maddened by the guilt of
blood, he sees the P'uries arise, with dark robes and
snaky hair ; and, calling on Apollo for protection, he
flees wildly away. 1

The third part, called The Furies (the Greek name

1 Two scenes of the Trilogy have been thus admirably
sketched by Mr. Browning in " Pauline" :

"Old lore,

Loved for itself and all it shows ; the king
Treading the purple calmly to his death,
While round him, like the clouds of evt. all dusk,
The giant shades of fate, silently flitting,
Pile the dim outline of the coming doom.

And the boy

With his white breast and brow, and clustering curls,
Sti^aked with his mother's blood, and striving hard
To tell his story ere his reason goes/ 1

PREFACE xvii

;< Eumenides " signifying literally " The Gracious
Goddesses," from the change in the nature of the
Furies with which the d^ama closes), opens at Delphi
in the temple of Apollo. The Furies lie in sleep,
made drowsy by the God : Orestes clings to the altar :
Apollo biJls him be of good hope, and depart unto
Athens while the Furies are yet asleep. As he
parses *rom the stage, the g'lost of Clytemnestra
rises and dJls the slumbering Furies to arise and
pursue the criminal. Then Apollo himself, with
words of loathing, bids them forth from his temple ;
and, scenting like hounds the track of blood, they
follow the flying Orestes.

Here the scene shifts to Athens ; Orestes, having
followed the behest of Apollo, clings to the statue of
Athena on the Acropolis, and claims her aid. The
cause is tried, apparently on Areopagus (the scene
probably representing both the \c.opolis and the
adjacent Areopagus) Athena presiding, Apollo
pleading Orestes' part, the Furies impeaching him of
matricide. The votes are cast, and found equal, for
acquittal and condemnation ; and this result, as
Athena has previously ruled, gives Orestes the benefit
of the doubt. The Furies, wroth at being thus
defrauded of *heir victim, vow vengeance on Athena's
land and nation : but she appeases them by promis-
ing them honourable worship for ever, as gracious
and fostering Powers of Earth, from her own
Athenians : and so, solemnly escorted by torches and
processions, they pass down into their subterranean

xviii THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

cave beneath Areopagus, with words of blessing upon
Attica; and the third and last part of the Trilogy
closes with joy and with* extinction of th& curse.

It will appear by a glance at this plot that the
Agamemnon and The Libation-Rearers are both of
them Tragedies* in the acc^pted^ modern sense ; the
one closing with the death of Agamemnon and. the
triumph of murder and adultery ; the other, with the
death of Cly temnestra and with madness as the
reward of matricide. The Furies might seem, to
modern eyes, less a tragedy than a drama of
restoration ; yet it conforms in ".11 respects to the
Aristotelian definition of Tragedy. The situation is
undeniably tragic, though the conclusion dhpels the
gloom.

The Trilogy is ^Eschylus' presentment of two
problems, each of eternal import, though the form in
which he contemplated them was the common theme
of the Greek drama. These problems are :
I. The Retribution of Crime.

II. The Inheritance or Transmission of Evil.

The views of the poet on each may perhaps be
illustrated by a few excerpts from his writings. It
has been pointed out (Plumptre, Biographical Essay)
that, in many cases, they are reflections on the
yvw/xat, or current proverbs of the day : the founda-
tions of Gieek philosophy, but often as forgotten as
those who laid them. Sometimes the poet actually
quotes and acknowledges the proverb, as a r/otyepwv
* an immemorial saying " ; but often, it is

PREFACE xix

probable that some piece of apparently irrelevant
mysticism is in reality the poet's reflection on some
saying famiMar to his audience, but not recognisable
by us. Such, e.g., I oelieve to be the case in the
celebrated passage (A gam. 160) Zevs, Sorts TTOT

COTfcV, K.T.A.

RETRIBUTION. "Among the dead, this bitter
name of murderess clings ever to my soul ; I wander
scorned of all." " Though he go down to the grave,
the guilty is never freed . . . the sinner on whose
hand is the stain of blood must see the Furies rise at
his side, avengers of murder, champions of the slain."
The Furies, IL 175, 316.

" There is one who spoils the spoiler; the slayer
in his turn is -lain ; while Zeus is lord of the world,
it is fixed that all who sin shall suffer." Agamemnon,
L 1562.

" The anvil-block of Justice is planted firm : Fate
the sword-smith hammers the steel of her design :
the mighty Fury from her dark depth of counsel
requites to the uttermost at last the guilt of blood
shed forth of old." The Libation-Bearers, L 647.

" There is a law that blood-drops shed upon the
ground demand other bloodshed in requital : Murder
calls aloud, summoning a Fury, who brings a further
woe, sent up in vengeance from those who vvere slain
before. Ibid, L 400.

INHERITANCE OF EVIL. " One said of old that
the gods have no heed to punish him who tramples
down the grace of things holy : 'twas impiously sal,! '

xx THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

their vengeance is manifested upon the children of all
who breathe forth rebellion overmuch, what time
their houses teem with weal , f oo great for man."
Agamemnon^ L 369. f *

" There is an ancient saying, tfhat human bliss, if
it reach its summit, doth not die hildless ; that from
prosperity springs up a bane, a woe insatiable. 1
hold not so: 'tis imphus act that bears those many
children, all like the race from which they sprang :
but the house of the upright hath a blessed fate, a
progeny of good." Agamemnon^ L 750.

These excerpts, few out of many passages bearing
on the same subject, may perhaps be a help towards
grasping the import of these dramas as a whole.
Not the least of ^Eschylus' claims to honour is his
divergence, in some points, from the traditional and
accepted views of the time, with respect to hereditary
guilt and responsib :i ity. A belief in a jealous and
vindictive Power, in children suffering for their
fathers' sins, in families lying under a curse for
generations was not only familiar to the Athenians
of this epoch, but approached the condition of an
accepted tenet : it was even, at times, a political
force : as, in the case of Pericles, his membership of
the Alcmaeonid family (which lay unde^ a curse for
the perfidious and impious murder of the partisans of
Cylon) undoubtedly operated in his disfavour. (See
Thucyd. Bk. i. ch. 127.)

The proportion of people who believe in an unjust,
capricious, and vindictive God may have diminished

PREFACE xxi

since the time of ^schylus and Ezekiel ; yet to this
day so large a minority are haunted by corresponding
ideas so considerable even in our own time has
been *he political influence of such notions that the
earnest protest of the Hebrew prophet and the less
distinct yet equally ourihed doctrine of the Athenian
poet can neither of them be said to have lost their
importance nor to nave done their work. The
eighteenth Chapter of Ezekiel, and the third chorus
of the Agamemnon^ should be read together, as
the grandest assertions, in pre-Christian times, of the
justice of God.

Ine poetry of yEschylus is the precursor of the
philosophy of Plato : the vague and mysterious
problems over which the poet brooded became the
subjects of moral philosophy in the next generation.
Let it be remembered that we have in ^Eschylus the
beginnings of speculation, not its ultimate forms ;
and the greatness of this first step will be at once
apparent. yEschylus deals especially with two
popular theories : (i.) The doctrine of the jealousy of
Heaven against human prosperity as such ; (ii.) The
doctrine above mentioned of the inheritance of evil
in certain families.

The first, he may be said to deny. The teaching
of Solon, as recorded and exemplified by Herodotus
in the history of Crcesus (Book i. ch. 30-33), "that
the Divine Power is altogether jealous, and loves to
trouble the estate of man," is confronted by yEschylus
with the assertion of justice, not caprice, as ruling

c

xxii THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

over man. That this conception brought the poet
into collision with the popular ideas of Zeus, is
manifest from the drama of Prometheus Vinctus
(where, unfortunately, we have the problem without
its solution, the rest of the trilogy being lost) : th?t
the national polytheism had little hold on his belief,
however largely it affected his poetry, seems to me
plain from all his deeper utterances, notwithstanding
the assertion 01 Klausen (Theol. ^Esch., D. 5) to tue
contrary. 1 But of the pott's attitude towards the
theory of a vindictive God, there is no question. " I
am alone in my thought," he cries : " it is not wealth,
nor prosperity it is impiety that breeds other Jns,
and woe for its sequel." It is hard to resist the
temptations of wealth, and power, arJ victory; yet
not these things, but the yielding to their tempta-
tions, do the gods punish : not Agamemnon's triumph,
not even the carnage of Troy, but his arrogance and
pride on his return : his making himself equal to the
gods. (Ag. 1. 8 1 1.)

The second doctrine that of the inheritance of
evil in certain families, forms the groundwork of the
whole Trilogy ; and the poet's views oil it must be
collected : they are nowhere concentrated or dis-
tinctly expressed. Substantially they appear to apply
to the following condition of things. The idea of
an At&, or inherited curse which dogs certain families,
has a double origin.

I. An origin of fact : that children are like their
3 See Fr. 295.

PREFACE xxiii

parents, grow up under their influence, borrow from
their connection with them much of their own
character.

II. An origin in custom. A family crime had a
far more serious import to an ancient Greek than we
can readily realise. 1 L is the sirrple fact, that the
idea of individual responsibility, and even of individual
existence, was almost absent from him. The family
-was his unit ; the family sinned in Jie sin of any
of its members ; the family exacted or suffered
vengeance ; any menber of the family who was slain
by another was held to have incurred the stain of
suL'.de.

The author of the Trilogy endeavours to purify
these ideas, rnd to reconcile them alike with the
doctrine of Justice and with the facts of the world.
The reality of the curse is not denied, but the
voluntary nature of each stage in its history is
asserted, as is the responsibility of the individual
criminal for his own act. The temptation, the pre-
disposition, may be extraneous, may be imposed by
heaven ; the deed is his own.

"The first step he is master not to take;" but, if
once it be taken, if the altar of right be once spurned
the miserable, desperate impulse is upon him ; he
goes from sin to sin, there is no help for him, he has
passed among the lost.

Such, I believe, is the inner doctrine of ^schylus,
struggling to light through language of vague import,
1 See Maine, Ancient Law, ch. 5.

xxiv THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

and occasional inconsistencies ; especially in the
relation of this process of evil to the divine will or
permission. Nor must we forgret his solution of the
moral problem, in The Furies. The family guifr and
curse are to be closed by an appea 1 to human justice,
which measures ihe guilt of the individual by the
circumstances and motives of his crime, and has
power to absolve, as well as to mete out punishment
to, an admitted criminal

Granting, as we must grant, the belief in such an
hereditary curse as ^Eschylus made the subject of his
trilogy, it is impossible to conceive a nobler solution
of the problem ; a nobler " purification by pity and
terror," if we may adopt in an extended sense
Aristotle's definition of Tragedy.

Perhaps it may not be out of place to say a few
words with respect to a charge, often brought
against yEschylu?, of being a bombastic poet. It is
undeniable that in his earlier plays there is a
tendency towards inflated language ; such prodigies
as c<e^aAcu#7/ KdgefipovTrjdr) arQevos (Prom. /. 362),
as <xAa)crt/zov iraiav 7TtaK>(acras (Seven against
Thebes^ L 635), show, at all events, a poetic artist
who has not yet fully dissevered the large from the
fine, the grandiose from the grand. Neither are the
thoughts in these plays always free from the same
charge, though the occurrence of metaphors which
we regard as Oriental, seems to me to demonstrate
capacity rather than extravagance in the Greek poet.
T '. is surprising, for instance, to find in the celebrated

PREFACE xxv

description of the battle of Salamis (The Persians^ L
577), and of the floating corpses of the drowned
Persians, and " death gnawing upon them " :

?r/)6s
ray

"They are scattered and peeled by the voiceless
children of the Pure," z.e. 9 the sea : t is surprising,
I say, to and such a phrase treated as fantastic and
Oriental. The same thought has been touched by
Shakespeare (The Tempest, Act ii. sc. i) :

O thou mine heir

Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fibh
Hath made his meal on thee ?

and by Shelley (Similes) :

As a shark and dog-fish wait
Under an Atlantic isle,
For the negro-ship whose freight
Is the theme of their debate,
Wrinkling their red gills the while.

But how inferior each expression is to that of
^schylus, need hardly be pointed out. Shakespeare's
is simple almost to baldness : Shelley's, powerfully,
almost horribly, descriptive ; but ^Eschylus, retaining
the physical word (o-KvAAoi/Tcu), paints tiie rest of
the scene with a rich imagination. Th~ children of
earth, but now so clamorous, are at the mercy of the
still children of that sea whose translucent purity
they have harassed and distracted in vain.

However thip may be, what I wish to point out is

xxvi THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

that all traces of immature work have disappeared,
when we reach the Trilogy. The sonDrous verse
remains, but the exaggerated style is gone. The
ponderous imprecations of the Prometheus or the
Seven against Thebes have turned to verse like this :

//A rty rtKeiov r??s tyrjs wai86s Slier]?,
"ATI}? 'EpLvtiv 0', atffi rovd* &r0a'

Occasionally, as in the prophecy of Calchas, the
oracular style is purposely assumed; or, as in The
Furies^ /. 285 sqq., a scene of mc.istrous horrors is
described in monstrous terms ; but of real bombast,
of large language misapplied, there is no more.
With this disappearance, a new facutcy has arisen :
a dramatic art of the most admirable kind. Not
even the excellent double interest of the CEdipus
Tyrannus of Sophocles is superior to the scene of
Clytemnestra's welcome of Agamemnon, with its
effusive insincerity and ominous words of double
and deadly meaning. The whole * character of
Clytemnestra is a refutation of those who maintain
that we may find poetry in .^schylus, but must go to
Sophocles or Euripides for drama. Nor must we
omit to notice the marvellous art displayed in the
whole episode of Cassandra. Her spirit is utterly
full of Apollo, the Sun-God, the Slayer of Night : a
mention, nay, a mere hint of him (TrvOoKpavra, /.
1255) banishes in a moment her brief sanity, and she
Bursts into ravings again. She is penetrated with
the " fire intolerant and intense " cf his coming, of

PREFACE xxvii

the sunrise of prophecy burning brighter and clearer,
while in its light the great *vaves of doom roll up and
on. His approach is a scorching glow of fire, before
his presence is revealed

t, olov rb Trvp' tirtpxej ju 66 /not*
<5rorot Atf/cei* " A.TTO\\OV *

Ah, ah the fire I it waxes nears me now
Woe, woe for me, Apollo of the dawn !

And her last speech is a cry to the actual sun,
whose light she will see no more for ever, to light
her avengers to their work. Close inspection of all
this scene will show -^schylus at his very highest
point of inspiration ; it is as true, and as imaginative,
as anything in King Lear.

With respect to the text, I think I have only once
departed from usual interpretations. Where the
text is mutilated or corrupt * nave supplied or
amended, as the context seemed to direct, to the
extent of a word or two. (See Appendix to The
Libation- Bearers. )

The one occasion where my version differs, I
believe, from any yet suggested, is the celebrated
passage (Ag. //. 105-7) :

rt yap OebQev

This I have interpreted in opposition to 'hose who
have taken dAfc crv/i^vros cuo>i/ as in some way

xxviii THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

describing the condition of the speaker. I suggest
that it may rather be tajten closely with 0o#ev and
that the whole passage mean " Still upon me doth
the divine life, whose strength waxes never old (///.
which is congenital with strengch), breathe r rom
heaven the impulse of song." This seems to suit
the context well, as I may shortly explain. The
chorus have just b^en bewailing the srd and
tremulous weakness of old a^e, too feeble A br war, too
feeble to walk without a staff, sad and presageful of
future evils, and [only at moments roused to hope by
propitious omens of sacrifice. Suddenly the light of
comfort breaks upon them. Old and feeble, they
have yet the divine inspiration of soner, breathed on
them from "realmi of help" (dAKa) by powers which
never wax old nor feeble. Then follows the matchless
ode, with its profound theology, its analysis of human
perplexity, its uUer pathos in describing the sacrifice
of Iphigenia.

In defence of this view, I would urge that aA/ca
is not a usual word at least, I have been unable to
find an instance of its use for any mental power
like genius or inspiration. It almost always means
physical prowess ; and if it becomes metaphorical at
all, it becomes so in the sense of help or aid (as in
The Furies^ L 257, dA/cav s\uv = clasping or holding
help, by embracing the image of the goddess : taking
sanctuary, in short). If this view of the word be
correct, *he word itself applies very ill to the chorus,
whose physical feebleness and powerlessness to help

PREFACE xxix

have just been alluded to : but very well to the gods,
whose ageless strength and power to aid are contrasted
with human weakness. The thought in
crv/JLtfrvros aitov will thus be parallel to that in d
X/)o; <p Swacrras ot Sophocles Ant. /. 608.

Undoubtedly there is a difficulty in applying such
a phrase as crvfj,(j)VTo$ aio>i> to the divine life at all.
Bnt it seems allowable to use words, properly only
applicable to human J'fe, with reference to the
divine, in a passage like this, where in thought the
contrast is drawn between the former as an ouwv
crw<vTos indeed, but not aA./c cn'/t<i>Tos, and the
latter, verily an cuwv in the wider sense, and aA/c
O-VJA^VTOS, coeval wi'h its eternal power to prompt
and aid.

And certainly the word KarairvcUt in its most
literal sense, seems to suit this idea of a sacred
impulse, an aid like a wafting wind, breathed down
from heaven.

I put forward this conjecture without confidence,
and merely as one more endeavour to elucidate a
passage of more than usual interest, which is allowed
to be dubious hitherto. To make it refer to the life
or condition of the speaker seems to me difficult ; to
translate it " the time co-extensive with x he war "
almost impossible : whether my ov n conjecture is
any better, iudicent alii. For the feeling of the
whole passage, it might not be amiss to compare
Goethe's vindication of the "honour and toil
await the old, in song.

xxx THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

Doch in's bekannte Saitenspiel
Mit Muth und Awmuth einzugreifen,
Nach eincm selbstgestr -;kten Ziel
Mit holdem Irren hinzuschw^ifen
Das, alte Herrn, ist eure Pflicht.

Faus* t part i., Theatre Prelude.

With respect to the translation, my object has
been, throughout, to be, if possible, readable. I
have sacrificed much that scholars might fairly
desiderate reproduction of the original metres,
preservation of strophe and antistrophe and so forth
on this ground, that I found my own metrical "kil 1
insufficient to satisfy even myself, in such a *ask. I
have little doubt that certain part" Cassandra's
earlier ravings for instance, or the wrath of the Furies
would be most fitly rendered in prose like that of
the analogous passages of King Lear and Macbeth :
but here, too, after a struggle, I resigned the conflict.
It is easy to write prose ; it is impossible to write
that prose.

The Anapaestic systems have been mostly rendered
in octosyllabic metre ; where dactylic feet were pre-
dominant in the original, I have sometimes adopted
the heroic quatrain, sometimes loose and irregular,
but always rhyming, measures. The earlier part
of the tlrrd chorus of the Agamemnon I have
endeavoured to reproduce in that arrangement of
octosyllabic verses used with such admirable effect
by Mr. Swinburne in the Prologue and Epilogue of
"Songs before Sunrise." The iambic dialogue has

PREFACE xxxi

been rendered into such blank verse, or rhyming
couplets, as I could command : the trochaic passages
into rhyming verse of greater length.

Any coincidences that may be found between
other translations and tne present may claim to be
for the most part accidental. Whatever has been
consciously adopted from elsewhere has been
acknowledged in a footnote, unless so familiar as to
have become common p/operty. Thus I have not
thought it necessary to avow obvious obligations to
Shakespeare, nor *o ascribe the " airy rings " of the
vuL ares' flight, in the first chorus of the Agamemnon,
to Jons^n, nor the " sleep of swords," that fine render-
ing of the Homeric x^A/ceos wvos, to Kingsley, nor
the rhythm of one cho'ric passage in The Libation-
Bearers to W. Morris. Such things are public
property now.

Part of this translation, viz., the Agamemnon^
having been already published, I have had, for that
part, the advantage of public criticism. I have care-
fully considered all such criticism, so far as it has
reached me, and have removed, I hope, all positive
errors that have been detected. Those critics who
have complained rather of the general faults of the
translation ouch, e.g., as difTuseness, or .; modern
tone than of particular errors, will, I hope, believe
my assurance that their words have been duly
weighed. If I have not recast the translation to the
extent their criticism demanded, it is neituer fro^
doubting its substantial truth, nor the seriousness of

xxxii THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

the fault. But I am not sanguine, after various
attempts, of my being able to translate in a closer
and more pregnant style. It is not a question of how
the thing could be done best, in the abstract ; it is,
unfortunately, the more limited and painful question,
how a particular individual can do it least imperfectly.
My main obligations, in the matter of -^Eschylus,
are expressec 1 in the dedication : in addition, I am
indebted to the Rev. W. A. Fearon, Assistant Master
of Winchester, for revising a large part of the
Agamemnon; to Mr. C. Kegan Paul for useful
criticisms, mainly, though not wholly, on the 'un* 1
play ; to Mr. A. O. Prickard, Fellow and Lecturer of
New College, Oxford, for incidental assistance
throughout the work, particularly in The Libation-
Bearers and The Furies; to Mr. C. B. Phillips,
Assistant Master of Winchester, who has gone over
the whole translation with care ; to Mr. D. S.
Margoliouth, Fellow of New College, Oxford, who
has helped me especially with several difficulties in
7"he Furies. Other friends will, I doubt not, accept
a general acknowledgment of their aid. I cannot,
however, leave unspecified my gratitude to Mr. F. R.
Benson and the rest of the Oxford company, who
last year performed the Agamemnon on the stage,
for the practia 1 insight they afforded their audience
into the spectacular as well as the literary and
dramatic merit of that noblest of poems.

E. D. A. M.
WINCHESTER, March 1881.

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION

IN -epublishing the House of Atreus^ 1 have
striven to remove the flaws to which private or public
criticism called my attention. A grave mistransla-
tion of Choeph., 1. 216, has, I hope, been banished.
Mr. A. O. Prickard and Professor Margoliouth
independently detected and denounced it to me : I
now plead, with Orestes

KaOalpei Trdvra yypdffKwv 6fjt,ov.

I may be permitted to add a statement of the
general principle that I have followed in making
alterations. Errors in scholarship I have endeavoured
to remove : where the English has been criticized, I
have always considered, and often obeyed, the
criticism : sometimes I have resisted it in obedience
to a higher law, e.g.> several critics objected to the
use of the word " spilth " ; I have retained it, r - used
by Shakespeare, and therefore fitted for tragic poetry,

xxxiv THE HOUSE OF ATREUS

though no longer in ordinary use. With regard to the
form of the translation, I have not made any serious
change. Were I now attempting the thing for the
first time, I should not throw so much of the first
chorus of the Agamemnon into quatrains. But in
this, as in other cases, that which was originally
difficult to do has become almost impossible to undo
and do again. The previous translation stands like
an erring and prohibitory ghost, "//^KCT'
rctSe " <aH/Si/. E. D. A. M.

WINCHESTER, October 1899.

CONTENTS

PAGB

AGAMEMNON . i

THE LIBATION-BEAKERS . . 79

THE FURIES - .135

THE AGAMEMNON OF AESCHYLUS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

A WATCHMAN.

CHORUS.

CLYTEMNESTRA.

A HERALD.

AGAMEMNON.

CASSANDRA.

^GISTHUS.

The Scene is the Palace of Atreus at Mycenae* In front of
the Palace stand statues of the gods, and altars prepared
for sacrifices.

AGAMEMNON

A V/ATCHMAN

I PRAY the gods to quit me of my toils,
To close the watch I keep, this livelong year ;
For as a watch-dog lying, not at rest,
Propped on o.ie arm, upon the palace-roof
Of Atreus' race, too long, too well I know
The starry conclave of the midnight sky,
Too well, the splendours of the firmament,
The lords of light, whose kingly aspect shows
What time they set or climb the sky in turn
The year's divisions, bringing frost or fire.

And now, as ever, am I set to mark
When shall stream up the glow of signal-flame,
The bale-fire bright, and tell its Trojan tale
Troy tovun is tden : such issue holds in hope
She in whose woman's breast beats heart of man.

Thus upon mine unrestful couch I lie,
Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited
By dreams ah me ! for in the place of sleep
Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels
The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal.

4 AGAMEMNON

And if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep,
I medicine my soul with melody
Of trill or song anon to tea^s I turn,
Wailing the woe that broods upon this home,
Not now by honour guided as of old.

But now at last fiir fall the welcome hour

That sets me free, whene'er the thick night glow

With beacon-fire of hope defened no more.

All hail ! [A beacon-light is seen reddening

the distant s/jy.

Fire of the night, that brings my spirit day,
Shedding on Argos light, and dance, and song,
Greetings to fortune, hail !

Let my loud summons ring within the ears
Of Agamemnon's queen, that she anon
Start from her couch and with a shrih voice cry
A joyous welcome to the beacon-blaze,
For I lion's fall ; such fiery message gleams
From yon high flame ; and I, before the rest,
Will foot the lightsome measure of our joy ;
For I can say, My master's dice fell fair
Behold '/ the triple sice, the lucky flame /
Now be my lot to clasp, in loyal love,
The hand of him restored, who rules our home :
Home but I say no more : upon my tongue
Treads hard the ox o' the adage.

Had it voice,

The hone itself might soothliest tell it^ tale ;
I, of set will, sneak words the wise may learn,
To others, nought remember nor discern.

\Exit. The chorus of old men of Mycenae enter ^
each leaning on a staff. During their song
Clytemnestra appears in the background^
kindling the altars.

AGAMEMNON

CHORUS

Ten livelong years have rolled away,
Since the twimlords of sceptred sway,
By Zeus endowed with pride of place,
The doughty chiefs of Atreus' race,

Went forth of yore,
To plead with Priam, face to face,

Before the judgment-seat of Wa~ !

A thousand ships from Argive land
Put forth to bear the martial band,
That with a snirit stern and strong
Went out to right the kingdom's wrong
Pealed, as they went, the battle-song,

Wild as the vuHures' cry ;
When o'er the eyrie, soaring h ; gh,
In wild bereaved agony,
Around, around, in airy rings,
They wheel with oarage of their wings,
But not the eyas-brood behold,
That called them to the nest of old ;
But let Apollo from the sky,
Or Pan, or Zeus, but hear the cry,
The exile cry, the wail forlorn,
Of birds from whom their home is torn
On those who wrought the rapine fell,
Heaven sends the vengeful fiends of hell.

->

Even so doth Zeus, the jealous lc~d
And guardian of the hearth and board,
Speed Atreus' sons, in vengeful ire,
'Gainst Paris sends them forth on fire,
Her to buy back, in war and blood,
Whom one did wed but many woo'd !

6 AGAMEMNON

And many, many, by his will,

The last embrace pf foes shall feel,

And many a knee in di 3t be bowed,

And splintered spears on shields ring loud,

Of Trojan and of Greek, Before

That iron bridal-feast be o'er !

But as he willed 'tis ordered all,

And woes, by heaven ordained, must fall

Unsoothed by toars or spilth of wine

Poured forth too late, the wrath dr. me

Glares vengeance on the flameless shrine. 1

And we in gray dishonoured eld,

Feeble of frame, unfit were held

To join the warrior array

That then went forth unto the fr .y :

And here at home we tarry, fain

Our feeble footsteps to sustain,

Each on his staff so strength doth wane,

And turns to childishness again.

For while the sap of youth is green,

And, yet unripened, leaps within,

The young are weakly as the old,

And each alike unmeet to hold

The vantage post of war !

And ah ! when flower and fruit are o'er,
And on life's tree the leaves are sere,
Age wendeth propped its journey drear,

As 1 forceless as a child, as light

And f eeting as a dream of night

Lost in the garish day !

1 " Vhe flameless shrine" appears to be a metaphor for
impious neglect of law : a ceremonial phrase with a moral
import.

AGAMEMNON 7

But thou, O child of Tyndareus,

Queen Clytemnestra, speak ! and say

What messenger of joy to-day
Hath won thine ear ? what welcome news,
That thus in sacrificial wise
E'en to the city's boundaries
Thou biddest altar-fires arise ?
Each god who doth our city guard,
And keeps o'er Argos wat^h and ward

From heaven above, from earth below
The mighty lords wiio rule the skies,
The market's lesser deities,

To each and all the altars glow,
Piled for the sacrifice !
And here and there, a near, afar,
Streams skyward many a beacon-star,
Conjur'd and charm'd and kindled well
By pure oil's soft and guileless spell,
Hid now no more
Within the palace' secret store.

O queen, we pray thee, whatsoe'er,

Known unto thee, were well revealed,
That thou wilt trust it to our ear,

And bid our anxious heart be healed !
That waneth now unto despair
Now, waxing to a presage fair,
Dawns, from the altar, Hope to scare
From our rent hearts the vulture Care.>

List ! for the power is mine, to chant on high

The chiefs' emprise, the strength that omens gave !

List ! on rny soul breathes yet a harmony,

From realms of ageless powers, and strong to save !

8 AGAMEMNON

How brother kings, twin lords of one command,
Led forth the youth of Hellas in their flower,

Urged on their way, witL vengeful spear and brand,
By warrior-birds, that watched the parting hour.

Go forth to Troy, the eagles Seemed to cry
And the sea-kiAgs obeyed the sky-kings' word,

When on the right they soared across the sky,
And one was black, one bore a white tail barred.

High o'er the palace were they seen to soar,
Then lit in sight of all, and rent and tare,

Far from the fields that she should range no more,
Big with her unborn brood, a mother-hare.

And one beheld, the soldier-prophet trie,
And the two chiefs, unlike of soul and will,

In the twy-coloured eagles straight he knew,
And spake the omen forth, for good and ill.

(Ah woe and well-a-day ! but be the issue fair !)

Go forth, he cried, and Pricings town shall fall.

Yet long the time shall be j and flock and herd,
The peoples wealth, that roam before the wall,

Shall force hew down, when Fate shall give the word.

But O beware ! lest wrath in Heaven abide,
To dim the glowing battle-forge once more,

And mar tfa mighty curb of Trojan pride,
The steel of vengeance, welded as for war !

For vitgin Artemis bears jealous hate
Against the royal house, the eagle-pair,

AGAMEMNON

Who rend the unborn brood, insatiate

Yea, loathes their banquet on the quivering hare.

(Ah woe and well-a-day ! but be the issue fair !)

For well she loves the goddess kind and mild
'l he tender new-born cubs of lions bold,

Too weak to range -and well the sucking child
Of every beast that roams by wood anU wold.

So to the Lord of Heaven she pray eth still,
"Nay, if it must be, be the omen true !

Yet do the visioned eagles presage ill;

'l he end be well, but crossed with evil too / "

Healer Apollo . be her wrath controlled,

Nor weave the long delay of thwarting gales,

To war against the Danaans and withhold
From the free ocean-waves their eager sails !

She craves, alas / to see a second life

Shed forth, a curst unhallowed sacrifice

; Ttuixt wedded souls, artificer of strife,

And hate that knows not fear, and fell device.

At home there tarries like a lurking snake,
Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled,

A wily watcher, passionate to slake,

In blood, resentment for a murdered child.

Such was the mighty warning, pealed of yore
Amid good tidings, such the word of fear,

What time the fateful eagles hovered o'er
The kings, and Calchas read the omen clear.

io AGAMEMNON

(In strains like his, once more,

Sing woe and well-a-day ! but be the issue fair !)

Zeus if to The Unknown

That name of many names seem good
Zeus, upon Thee I call, t '

Thro' the mind's every roau
I passed, but vain are all,
Save that which n?mes thee Zeus, the Highest One,

Were it but mine to cast away the load,
The weary load, that weigas my spirit down.

He that was Lord of old,
In full-blown pride of place and valour bold,

Hath fallen and is gone, even as an old tale tc!J !

And he that next held sway,

By stronger grasp o'erthrovn

Hath pass'd a-vay ! l
And whoso now shall bid the triumph-chant arise

To Zeus, and Zeus alone,
He shall be found the truly wise.
'Tis Zeus alone who shows the perfect way

Of knowledge : He hath ruled,
Men shall learn wisdom, by affliction schooled.

In visions of the night, like dropping rain,

Descend the many memories of pain
Before the spirit's sight : through tears and dole

Comes wisdom o'er the unwilling soul

A boon, I wot, of all Divinity,

That holds its sacred throne in strength, above the
oky !

And then the elder chief, at whose command
Tb*> fleet of Greece was manned,

1 These are Ouranos and Kronos, predecessors of Zeus on
the throne of heaven.

AGAMEMNON n

Cast on the seer no word of hate,

But veered before the sudden breath of Fate

Ah, weary white ! for, ere they put forth sail,
Did every store, each minish'd vessel, fail,

While all the Achaean host

At Aulis anchored lay,
Looking across to Chalcis and the coast
Where refluent waters weher, rock) and sway ;

And rife with ill d^lay

From northern Strymon blew the thwarting
blast

Mother of *kmine fell,

That holds men wandering still
Fr v from the haven where they fain would be !

And pinless dH waste
Each ship and cable, rotting on the sea,
And, doubling with delay each weary hour,
Withered with hope deferred th' Achaeans* warlike
flower.

But when, for bitter storm, a deadlier relief,
And heavier with ill to either chief,
Pleading the ire of Artemis, the seer avowed,

The two AtridcE smote their sceptres on the plain,
And, striving hard, could not their tears restrain !
And then the elder monarch spake aloud

/// lot were mine^ to disobey !
And ill) to smite my child^ my household's love

and pride !
To stain with virgin blood a father's hands> and

slay

My daughter, by the altar's side /
'Twixt woe and woe I dwell
/ dare not Vke a recreant fly ',

12 AGAMEMNON

And leave the league of ships, and fail each true ally ;
For rightfully they crave, with eager fiery mind,
The virgin's blood, shed forth to lull the adverse

wind
God send the deed be well !

Thus on Ms neck he took
Fate's hard compelling yoke ;

Then, in the counter-^ale of will abhorr'd, accursed,
To recklessness his shifting spirit veered
Alas ! that Frenzy, fast of ills and worst,
With evil craft men's souls to sin hath ever stirred !

And so he steeled his heart ah, well-a-day
Aiding a war for one false woman's sake,

His child to slay,
And with her spilt blood make
An offering, to speed the ships upon their way !

Lusting for war, the bloody arbiters
Closed heart and ears, and would nor hear nor heed

The girl-voice plead,
Pity me, Father ! nor her prayers,

Nor tender, virgin years.

So, when the chant of sacrifice was done,
Her father bade the youthful priestly train
Raise her, like some poor kid, above the altar-stone,
From where amid her robes she lay

Sunk all in swoon away
Bade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed,

Her fdr lips' speech refrain,

Lest she should speak a curse on Atreus' home and
seed,

So, trailing on the earth her robe of saffron dye,
With one last piteous dart from her beseeching eye

AGAMEMNON 13

Those that should smite she smote
Fair, silent, as a pictured form, but fain
To plead, fs all forge* ?
How oft those halls of old)
Wherein my sire high feast did hold^
Rang to the virginal soft strain.

When /, a stainless child^
Sang from pure lips and undefiled.

Sang of my sire^ and all
His honoured life^ and how on him should fall

Heaverts highest gift and gain !
And then but I boheld not, nor can tell,

What further fate befel :
"^ut this is sure, that Calchas' boding strain

Can ne'er be void or vain.
This wage from Justice' hand do sufferers earn,

The future to discern :
And yet farewell, O secret of To-morrow !

Foreknowledge is fore-sorrow.
Clear with the clear beams of the morrow's sun,

The future presseth on.
Now, let the house's tale, how dark soe'er,

Find yet an issue fair !
So prays the loyal, solitary band

That guards the Apian land.

[ They turn to Clytemnestra, who leaves
the altars and comes forward.

O queen, I come in reverence of thy sway

For, while the ruler's kingly seat is void,

The loyal heart before his consort bends.

Now be it sure and certain news of good,

Or the fair tidings of a flattering hope,

That bids thee spread the light from shrine to shrine,

I, fain to hear, yet grudge not if thou hide.

14 AGAMEMNON

CLYTEMNESTRA

As saith the adage, Front the womb of Night
Spring forth, with promise fair^ the young child Light.
Ay fairer even than all hope my news
By Grecian hands is Priam's city ta'en !

CHORUS

What say'st thou ? doubtful heart makes treacherous
ear.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Hear then again, and plainly Troy is ours !

CHORUS
Thrills thro' my heart such joy as wakens tears.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Ay, thro' those tears thine eye looks loyalty.

CHORUS
But hast thou proof, to make assurance sure ?

CLYTEMNESTRA
Go to ; I have unless the god has lied.

CHORUS
Hath some night-vision won thee to belief?

CLYTEMNESTRA
Out on all presage of a slumberous soul !

CHORUS
But wert thou cheered by Rumour's wingless word ?

AGAMEMNON 15

CLYTEMNESTRA
Peace thou dost chide ma as a credulous girl.

CHORUS
Sry then, how lo*ig ago the city fell ?

CLYTEMNESTRA
Even in this night chat now brings forth the dawn.

CHORUS
Yet who so swift could speed the message here ?

CLYTEMNESTRA

From Ida's top Hephscstus, lord of fire,

Sent forth his sign ; and on, and ever on,

Beacon to boacon sped the courier-flame.

From Ida to the crag, that Hermes loves,

Of Lemnos ; thence unto the steep sublime

Of Athos, throne of Zeus, the broad blaze flared.

Thence, raised aloft to shoot acros^ the sea,

The moving light, rejoicing in its strength,

Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way,

In golden glory, like some strange new sun,

Onward, and reached Macistus' watching heights.

There, with no dull delay nor heedless sleep,

The watcher sped the tidings on in turn,

Until the guard upon Messapius' peak

Saw the far flame gleam on Euripus' tide,

And from the high-piled heap of withered furze

Lit the new sign and bade the message on.

Then the strong light, far-flown and yet undimmed,

Shot thro' the sky above Asopus' plain,

Bright as the moon, and on Cithserou's

Aroused another watch of flying fire.

i6 AGAMEMNON

And there the sentinels no whit disowned,
But sent redoubled on, the hest of flame
Swift shot the light, abo/e Gorgopis' ba^,
To ^Egiplanctus' mount, and bade the peak
Fail not the onward ordinance of fire.
And like a long beard streaming in the wind,
Full-fed with fuel, roared and rose the blaze,
And onward flaring, gleamed above the cape,
Beneath which shimmers the Saronic bay,
And thence leapt light unto Arachne's peak,
The mountain watch that looks upon our town.
Thence to th' Atrides' roof in lineage fair,
A bright posterity of Ida's fire.
So sped from stage to stage, fulfilled in turn,
Flame after flame, along the course ordained,
And lo ! the last to speed upon its way
Sights the end first, and glows unto tue goal.
And Troy is ta'en, and by this sign my lord
Tells me the tale, and ye have learned my word.

CHORUS

To heaven, O queen, will I upraise new song :

But, wouldst thou speak once more, I fain would hear

From first to last the marvel of the tale.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Think you this very morn the Greeks in Troy,

And loud therein the voice of utter wail !

Within one cun pour vinegar and oil,

And look ! unblent, unreconciled, they war.

So in the twofold issue of the strife

Mingle the victor's shout, the captives' moan.

For ail the conquered whom the sword has spared

Cling weepingsome unto a brother slain,

AGAMEMNON 17

Some childlike to a nursing father's form,

And wail the loved and lost, the while their neck

Bows down already 'ne^th tne captive's chain.

And lo ! the victors, now the fight is done,

Goaded by restless hunger, far and wide

Range all disordered thro' the town, to snatch

Sc.ch victual and such rest as chance may give

Within the captive halls that once were Troy

Joyful to rid them of the frost aad dew

Wherein th^y couched upon the plain of old

Joyful to sleep the gracious night all through,

Unsummoned of the .vatching sentinel.

Yet let them reverence well the city's gods,

T^e lords of Troy, tho' fallen, and her shrines ;

So shall the spoilers not in turn be spoiled.

Yea, let no craving for forbidden gain

Bid conquerors yield before the darts of greed.

For we need yet, before the race be won,

Homewards, unharmed, to round the course once more.

For should the host wax wanton ere it come,

Then, tho' the sudden blow of fate oe spared,

Yet in the sight of gods shall rise once more

The great wrong of the slain, to claim revenge.

Now, hearing from this woman's mouth of mine,

The tale and eke its warning, pray with me,

Luck sway the scale ^ with no uncertain poise ,

For my fair hopes are changed to fairer joys.

CHORUS

A gracious word thy woman's lips hav*. told,
Worthy a wise man's utterance, O my queen ;
Now with clear trust in thy convincing tale
I set me to salute the gods with song,
Who bring us bliss to counterpoise our pain.

\Exit Clytemnestra*
C

i8 AGAMEMNON

Zeus, Lord of heaven ! and welcome night
Of victory, that hast our might

With all the glories c 'owned !
On towers of Ilion, free no more,
Hast flung the mighty mesh of war,

And closely girt them round,
Till neither \varrior may 'scape,
Nor stripling lightly overleap
The trammels aj they close, and close,
Till with the grip of doom our foes

In slavery's coil are bound !

Zeus, Lord of hospitality,

In grateful awe I bend to thec

Tis thou hast struck the blow i

At Alexander, long ago,

We marked thee bend diy venjeful bow,
But long and warily withhold
The eager shaft, which, uncontrolled
And loosed too soon or launched too high,
Had wandered bloodless through the sky.

Zeus, the high God ! whatever be dim in doubt,

This can our thought track out
The blow that fells the sinner is of God,

And as he wills, the rod
Of vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,

The gods list not to hold
A reckoning with him whose feet oppress

The grace of holiness
An impious word ! for whensoe'er the sire

Breathed forth rebellious fire
What time his household overflowed the measure

Of bliss and health and treasure
His children's children read the reckoning plain,

At last, in tears and pain.

AGAMEMNON 19

On me let weal that brings no woe be sent.

And therewtffial, content ; T - -*
Who spurns the shrin^ of Right, nor wealth nor
power

Shall be to him a tower,
To guard him from the gulf: there lies his lot,

x Vhere all things are forgot.
Lust drives him on Just, desperate and wild,

Fate's sin-contriving child
And cure is none ; beyond concealment clear,

Kindles sin's baleful glare.
As an ill coin beneath the wearing touch

Betrays by stain and smutch
It: metal false such is the sinful wight.

JtJefore, on pinions light,
Fair Pleasure flits, and lures him childlike on,

While home and kin make moan
Beneath the grinding burden of his crime ;

Till, in the end of time,
Cast down of heaven, he pours forth fruitless prayer

To powers that will not Jiear.

And such did Paris come

Unto Atrides' home,

And thence, with sin and shame his welcome to
repay,

Ravished the wife away
And she, unto her country and her kin
Leaving the clash of shields and spears and arming

ships,
And bearing unto Troy destruction for a dower,

And overbold in sin,
Went fleetly thro' the gates, at midnight hour.

Oft from the prophets' lips
Moaned out the warning and the wail Ah woe !

20 AGAMEMNON

Woe for the home, the home 1 and for the chieftains,

woe!

Woe for the bride-bed, wr rm
Yet from the lovely limbs, the impress of the form
Of her who loved her lord, awhile ago !

And woe ! for him who stands
Shamed, silent, tinreproachful, stretching hands
That find her not, and sees, yet will not see,

That she is ilir away !
And his sad fancy, yearning o'er the se?

Shall summon and recall
Her wraith, once more to queen it in his hall.

And sad with many memories,
The fair cold beauty of each sculptured face
And all to hatefulncss is turned their graco,
Seen blankly by forlorn and hungering eyes !

And when the night is deep,
Come visions, sweet and sad, and bearing pain

Of hopings vain
Void, void and vain, for scarce the sleeping sight

Has seen its o*d delight,
When thro' the grasps of love that bid it stay

It vanishes away
On silent wings that roam adown the ways of sleep.

Such are the sights, the sorrows fell,
About our hearth and worse, whereof I may not
tell.

But, all the wide town o'er,
Each home that sent its master far away

From Hellas' shore,

Feels the keen thrill of heart, the pang of loss,
to-day.

For, truth to say,
The touch of bitter death is manifold 1

AGAMEMNON 21

Familiar was each face, and dear as life,

That went unto the war,
But thither, whence i warrior went of old,

Doth nought return
Only a spear and sword, and ashes in an urn !

For Ares, lord of strife,
vVho doth the swaying scales of oattle hold,
War's mone^clian^r^^jving dust for gold,

Sn3s"back, to" hearts TtTuiF iield~th<Sm dear,
Scant ash of warriors, wept with many a tear,
Light to the hand, but heavy to the soul ;

Yea, fills the light urn full

With what survived the flame-
Death's dusty measure of a hero's frame 1

Alas! one jries, and yet alas again!
Our chief is gone, the hero of the spear,

And hath not left his peer !
Ah woe! another moans my spouse is slain,

The death of honour, rolled in d* f st and blood,
Slain for a womarts sin, a false wifJs shame !

Such muttered words of bitter mood
Rise against those who went forth to reclaim ;

Yea, jealous wrath creeps on against th' Atrides'
name.

And others, far beneath the I Han wall,
Sleep their last sleep the goodly chiefs and tall,
Couched in the foeman's land, whereon they gave
Their breath, and lords of Troy, each in his Trojan
grave.

Therefore for each and all the city's breast
Is heavy with a wrath supprest,

22 AGAMEMNON

As deep and deadly as a curse more loud

Flung by the common crowd :
And, brooding deeply, dot' my soul await

Tidings of coining fate,
Buried as yet in darkness' womb.
For not forgetful is the high gpds' doom

Against the Lons of carnage : all too long
Seems the unjust to prosper and be strong,

Till the dark Furies come,
And smite with stern reversal all his home,

Down into dim obstruction he is gone,
And help and hope, among the lost, is none !

O'er him who vaunteth an exceeding fame,

Impends a woe condign ;
The vengeful bolt upon his ^yes doth flame,

Sped from the hand divine.
This bliss be mine, ungrudged of God, to feel -

To tread no city to the dust,

Nor see my own life thrust
Down to a slave's estate beneath another's heel !

Behold, throughout the city wide
Have the swift feet of Rumour hied,

Roused by the joyful flame :
But is the news they scatter, sooth ?
Or haply do they give for truth

Some cheat which heaven doth frame ?
A child were he and all unwise,

Who let h's heart with joy be stirred,
To see tne beacon-fires arise,

And then, beneath some thwarting word,

Sicken anon with hope deferred.

The edge of woman's insight still

Good news from true divideth ill ;

AGAMEMNON 23

Light rumours leap within the bound
That fences female credence round,
But, lightly bom, as Hghtly dies
The tale that springs of her surmise.

Soon shall we know wnereof the bale-fires tell,
The beacons, kindled with transmitted flame ;
Whether, as well I deem, their tale is true,
Or whether like some dream ielusive came
The welcome blaze but to befool our soul.
For lo ! I see a herald from the shore
Draw hither, shadowed with the olive-wreath
And thirsty dust, twin-brother of the clay,
Speaks plain ot travel far and truthful news
No dumb surmise, nor tongue of flame in smoke,
Fitfully kindled from the mountain pyre ;
But plainlier shall his voice say, All is well^
Or but away, forebodings adverse, now,
And on fair promise fair fulfilment come !
And whoso for the state prays otherwise,
Himself reap harvest of his ill desire !

Enter HERALD

O land of Argos, fatherland of mine !
To thee at last, beneath the tenth year's sun,
My feet return ; the bark of my emprise,
Tho J one by one hope's anchors broke away,
Held by the last, and now rides safely here.
Long, long my soul despaired to win, in death,
Its longed-for rest within our Argive land :
And now all hail, O earth, and hail to ee,
New-risen sun ! and hail our country's God,
High-ruling Zeus, and thou, the Pythian lord,
Whose arrows smote us once smite thou no more !
Was not thy wrath wreaked full upon our heads,

24 AGAMEMNON

O king Apollo, by Scamander's side ?

Turn thou, be turned, be saviour, healer, now !

And hail, all gods who role the street and mart

And Hermes hail ! my patron and my pride,

Herald of heaven, and lord of heralds here !

And Heroes, ye who sped us 1 on olir way

To one and all I <*ry, Receive again

With grace such Argives as the spear has spared.

Ah, home of royalty, beloved halls,

And solemn shrines, and gods that front the morn I

Benign as erst, with sun-flushed aspect greet

The king returning after many days.

For as from night flash out the beams of day,

So out of darkness dawns a light, a king,

On you, on Argos Agamemnon comes.

Then hail and greet him well ! such meed befits

Him whose right hand hewed down the towers of Troy

With the great axe of Zeus who righteth wrong

And smote the plain, smote down to nothingness

Each altar, ever> r brine ; and far and wide

Dies from the whole land's face its offspring fair.

Such mighty yoke of fate he set on Troy

Our lord and monarch, Atreus' elder son,

And comes at last with blissful honour home ;

Highest of all who walk on earth to-day

Not Paris nor the city's self that paid

Sin's price with him, can boast, Whatever befal^

The guerdon we have won outweighs it alL

But at Fate's judgment-seat the robber stands

Condemned 3if rapine, and his prey is torn

Forth from his hands, and by his deed is reaped

A bloody harvest of his home and land

Gone down to death, and for his guilt and lust

His father's race pays double in the dust.

AGAMEMNON 25

CHORUS
Hail, herald of the Greeks,* new-come from wan

HERALD
All hail ! not death itself can fright me now.

CHORUS
Was thine heart wrung with longing fur thy land ?

HERALD
So that this joy doth brim mine eyes with tears.

CHORUS
On you too then this sweet distress did fall

HERALD
How say'st thou ? make me master of thy word.

CHORUS
You longed for us who pined for you again.

HERALD
Craved the land us who craved it, love for love ?

CHORUS
Yea, till my brooding heart moaned out with pain.

HERALD
Whence thy despair, that mars the army's joy ?

CHORUS
Sole cure oj wrong is silence, saith the saw.

26 AGAMEMNON

HERALD
Thy kings afar, coulclst Jthou fear other men ?

CHORUS
Death had been sweet, as t^hou c^idst say but now.

t HERALD r

'Tis true ; Fate smiles at last. Throughout our toil,
These many years, some chances issued fair,
And some, I wot, were chequered with P curse.
But who, on earth, hath won the bliss of heaven,
Thro 7 time's whole tenor an unbroken weal ?
I could a tale unfold of toiling oars,
111 rest, scant landings On a shore rock-strewn,
All pains, all sorrows, for our daily doom.
And worse and hatefuller our woes on land ;
For where we couched, close by the toeman's wall,
The river-plain was ever dank with dews,
Dropped from the sky, exuded from the earth,
A curse that clung unto our sodden garb,
And hair as horient as a wild beast's fell.
Why tell the woes of winter, when the birds
Lay stark and stiff, so stern was Ida's snow?
Or summer's scorch, what time the stirless wave
Sank to its sleep beneath the noon-day sun ?
Why mourn old woes ? their pain has passed away :
And passed away, from those who fell, all care,
For evermore, to rise and live again.
Why sum the count of death, and render thanks
For life by moaning over fate malign ?
Farewell, a long farewell to all our woes !
To us, the remnant of the host of Greece,
Comes weal beyond all counterpoise of woe ;
Thus boast we rightfully to yonder sun,
Like him far-fleeted over sea and land.

AGAMEMNON 27

The Argive host prevailed to conquer Troy^

And in the temples of the gods of Greece

Hung tip thes<. spoils^ a s, inirig sign to Time.

Let those who learn this legend bless aright

The city and its chieftains, and repay

The meed of gratitude to Zeus who willed

Ana wrought the deed. So stands the tale fulfilled.

i
CHORUS

Thy words ovrbear my doubt : for news of good,

The ear of age hath ever youth enow :

But those within and Ciytemnestra's self

Would fain hear all ; glad thou their ears and mine.

Re-enter CLYTEMNESTRA

Last night, when first t^e fiery courier came,

In sign that Troy is ta'en and razed ^o earth,

So wild a cry of joy my lips gave out,

That I was chidden Hath the beacon watch

Made sure unto thy soul the sack of Troy ?

A very woman thou, whose heart leaps light

At wandering rumours ! and with words like these

They showed me how I strayed, misled of hope.

Yet on each shrine I set the sacrifice,

And, in the strain they held for feminine,

Went heralds thro 7 the city, to and fro,

With voice of loud proclaim, announcing joy ,

And in each fane they lit and quenched with wine

The spicy perfumes fading in the flame.

All is fulfilled : I spare your longer tale

The king himself anon shall tell me all.

Remains to think what honour best may greet
My lord, the majesty of Argos, home.
What day beams fairer on a woman's eyes

28 AGAMEMNON

Than this, whereon she flings the portal wide,

To hail her lord, heaven-shielded, home from war ?

This to my husband, that h ; tarry not,

But turn the city's longing into joy !

Yea, let him come, and coming may he find

A wife no other than he left her, true

And faithful as i watch-dog to his home,

His foemen's foe, in all her drties leal,

Trusty to k^ep for ten long years unmarred

The store whereon he set his master-se~l.

Be steel deep-dyed, before ye look to see

111 joy, ill fame, from other wight, in me ! *

HERALD

? Tis fairly said : thus speaks a noble dame,
Nor speaks amiss, when truth informs the boast

\Exit Clytemnestra.

CHORUS

So has she spoken be it yours to learn
By clear interpreters her specious word.

1 This expression, intentionally obscure in tlie original,
requires explanation for its full force to be seen. It is, literally,
"I know not pleasure, nor scandalous report, from another
man, more than (I know) the dipping of bronze." This most
naturally seems to imply, not a known process, such as dipping
metal to temper or harden it (cf. Othello, Act v, , Sc. 2 : ' ' It
is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper"), but some un-
known or very difficult thing perhaps the dyeing of metal
throughout. Such, at least, is the meaning to the Herald, and
through him, to Agamemnon. Meantime, as elsewhere in her
speech, there is a. "double entendre," ominous to the chorus,
who seem vaguely to know of her unfaithfulness, and to the
Athenian audience, acquainted with the whole story, of thrilling
effectiveness. ' ' I know no more of evil report with any other
man, than I know of imbruing the steel." Before long she
will stand forth with the steel imbrued in her husband's blood,
and vaunting aloud her love for ^gisthus. her trusty paramour.

AGAMEMNON 29

Turn to me, herald tell me if anon

The second well-loved lord of Argos comes ?

Hath Menelaus safely sjpd with you?

HERALD

Alas brief boon unto my friends it were,

To flatter them, for truth, with falsehoods fair !

CHORUS

Speak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst
Too plainly, truth and joy are here divorced.

HERALD

The hero and his bark were rapt away
Far nx.n the Grecian fleet ? 'tis truth I say.

CHORUS

Whether in all men's sight from Ilion borne,
Or from the fleet by stress of weather torn ?

HERALD

Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,
And one short word hath told long woes aright.

CHORUS

But say, what now of him each comrade saiih ?
What their forebodings, of his life or death ?

HERALD

Ask me no more : the truth is known to none,
Save the earth-fostering, all-surveying oun,

CHORUS

Say, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven ?
How rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven ?

30 AGAMEMNON

HERALD

Nay, ill it were to mar with sorrow's tale

The day of blissful news. The gods demand

Thanksgiving sundered from solicitude.

If one as herald came with rueful face

To say, The curs? has fallen, and the host

Gone down to death; and one wide wound has reached

The city's heart, anS. out of many homes

Many are cast and consecrate to death.

Beneath the double scourge -, that Ares loves,

The bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom

If such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,

'Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.

But coming as he comes who bringeth news

Of safe return from toil, and issues fair,

To men rejoicing in a weal restored

Dare I to dash good words with ill, and say

How the gods' anger smote the Greeks in storm ?

For fire and sea, that erst held bitter feud,

Now swore conspiracy and pledged their faith,

Wasting the Argives worn with toil and war.

Night and great horror of the rising wave

Came o'er us, and the blasts that blow from Thrace

Clashed ship with ship, and some with plunging prow

Thro' scudding drifts of spray and raving storm

Vanished, as strays by some ill shepherd driven.

And when at length the sun rose bright, we saw

Th' ^gaean sea-field flecked with flowers of death,

Corpses of Grecian men and shattered hulls.

For us indjed, some god, as well I deem,

No human power, laid hand upon our helm,

Snatched us or prayed us from the powers of air,

And brought our bark thro' all, unharmed in hull :

And saving Fortune sat and steered us fair,

AGAMEMNON 31

So that no surge should gulf us deep in brine, 1
Nor grind our keel upon a rocky shore.

So 'scaped we death that lurks beneath the sea,
But, under day's white light, mistrustful all
(X fortune's smile, we sat and brooded deep,
Shepherds forlorn of thoughts that windered wild,
O'er this new woe ; for smitten war our host,
And lost as ashes scattered from tne pyre
Of whom if a M y draw his life-breath yet,
Be well assured, he deems of us as dead,
As we of him no other fate forebode.
But heaven save aJM If Menelaus live,
He will not tarry, but will surely come :
Therein ~e if anywhere the high sun's ray
Descries him upon earth, preserved by Zeus,
Who wills not yet to wipe his race away,
Hope still there is that homeward he may wend.
Enough thou hast the truth unto the end.

CHORUS

Say, from whose lips the presage fell ?
Who read the future all too well,

And named her, in her natal hour,

Helen, the bride with war for dower ?
'Twas one of the Invisible,

Guiding his tongue with prescient power.
On fleet, and host, and citadel,

War, sprung from her, and death did lour,
When from the bride-bed's fine-spun veil
She to the Zephyr spread her sail.

1 In Memoriam t x.

Than if with thee the roaring wells
Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine.

32 AGAMEMNON

Strong blew the breeze the surge closed o'er
The cloven track of keel and oar,

But while she fled, th< re drove along,

Fast in her wake, a mighty throng
Athirst for blood, athirst for *var,

Forward in fell pursuit tney sprung,
Then leapt on Simois' bank ashore,

The leafy ccopices among
No rangers, the/, of wood and field,
But huntsmen of the sword and shield.

Heaven's jealousy, that works its will,
Sped thus on Troy its destined ill,

Well named, at once, the Bride and Bane ;

And loud rang out the bridal strain ;
But they to whom that song befel

Did turn anon to tears again ;
Zeus tarries, but avenges still

The husband's wrong, the household's stain I
He, the hearth's lord, brooks not to see
Its outraged hospitality.

Even ijow, and in far other tone,
Troy chants her dirge of mighty moan,

Woe upon Paris, woe and hate !

Who wooed his country's doom for mate
This is the burthen of the groan,

Wherewith she wails disconsolate
The blood, so many of her own

Have poured in vain, to fend her fate ;
Troy ! ihou hast fed and freed to roam
A lion-cub within thy home !

A suckling creature, newly ta'en
From mother's teat, still fully fain

AGAMEMNON 33

Of nursing care ; and oft caressed,

Within the arms, upon the breast,
Even as an infant, has it lain ;

Or fawns and licks, by hunger pressed,
The hand that will assuage its pain ;

in life's young dawn, a well-loved guest,
A fondling for the children's play.
A joy unto the old and gray.

But waxinf time and growth betrays
The blood-thirst of the lion-race,

And, for the KOUSJ'S fostering care,

Unbidden allj it revels there,
And bloody recompense repays

K,^t flesh of kine, its talons tare :
A mighty beast, that slays, and slays,

And mars with blood the household fair,
A God-sent pest invincible,
A minister of fate and hell.

Even so to Ilion's city came by stealth

A spirit as of windless seas and skies,
A gentle phantom-form of joy and wealth,

With love's soft arrows speeding from its eyes
Love's rose, whose thorn doth pierce the soul in
subtle wise.

Ah, well-a-day ! the bitter bridal-bed,

When the fair mischief lay by Paris' side !

What curse on palace and on people sped

With her, the Fury sent on Priam's piide,
By angered Zeus ! what tears of many a widowed bride !

Long, long ago to mortals this was told,
How sweet security and blissful state
r>

34 AGAMEMNON

Have curses for their children so men hold

And for the man of ail-too prosperous fate
Springs from a bitter seed sjme woe 5r satiate.

Alone, alone, I deem far otherwise;

Not bliss nor wealth it is, but impious deed,
From which t^at after-growth of ill doth rise !
Woe springs from wron^, the plant is like the

seed

vVhile Right, in honour's house, doth its own likeness
breed.

Some past impiety, some gray old crime,

Breeds the young curse, that wantons in our : 11,

Early or late, when haps th' appointed time ~

And out of light brings power of darkness still,
A master-fiend, a foe, unseen, invinciole ;

A pride accursed, that broods upon the race

And home in which dark At holds her sway

Sin's child rnd Woe's, that wears its parents' face;

While Right in smoky cribs shines clear as clay,

And decks with weal his life, who walks the righteous

way.

From gilded halls, that hands polluted raise,
Right turns away with proud averted eyes,

And of the wealth, men stamp amiss with praise,

Heedless, to poorer, holier temples hies,
And to Fate's goal guides all, in its appointed wise.

Hail to ihee, chief of Atreus 3 race,
Returning proud from Troy subdued !
How shall I greet thy conquering face ?
How nor a fulsome praise obtrude,
Nor stint the meed of gratitude ?

AGAMEMNON 35

For mortal men who fall to ill
Take little heed of open truth,
But seek unto its >emblance still :
The show of weeping and of ruth
To the forlorn will all men pay,
But, of the grief their eyes display,
Nought to the heart doth pie-ce its way.
And, with the joyous, they 1 -eguile
Their lips unto a feigned smile,
And force a joy, unfelt the while ;
But he who as a shepherd wise

Doth know Irs flock, can ne'er misread
Truth in the falsehood of his eyes,
Who veils beneath a kindly guise

A lukewarm love in deed.
And thou, our leader when of yore
Thou badest Greece go forth to war
For Helen's sake I dare avow
That then I held thee not as now ;
That to my vision thou didst seem
Dyed in the hues of disesteem.
I held thee for a pilot ill,
And reckless, of thy proper will,
Endowing others doomed to die
With vain and forced audacity 1
Now from my heart, ungrudgingly,
To those that wrought, this word be said
Well fall the labour ye have sped
Let time and search, O king, declare
What men within thy city's "bound
Were loyal to the kingdom's care,
And who were faithless found.

\Enter Agamemnon in a chariot ', accom-
panied by Cassandra, He speaks
without descending.

36 AGAMEMNON

AGAMEMNON

First, as is meet, a king\ All-hail be said

To Argos, and the gods that guard the land

Gods who with me availed to speed us home,

With me availed to wring from Priam's town

The due of justice. In the court of heaven

The gods in co > clave sat ard judged the cause,

Not frorr a pleauer's tongue, and at the close.

Unanimous into the urn of doom

This sentence gave, On Ilton and her men,

Death : and where hope drew nigh to pardon's urn

No hand there was to cast a vo^e therein.

And still the smoke of fallen I lion

Rises in sight of all men, and the flame

Of Ate's hecatomb is living yet,

And where the towers in dusty ashes sink,

Rise the rich fumes of pomp and wealth consumed.

For this must all men pay unto the gods

The meed of mindful hearts and gratitude :

For by our h^nds the meshes of revenge

Closed on the prey, and for one woman's sake

Troy trodden by the Argive monster lies

The foal, the shielded band that leapt the wall,

What time with autumn sank the Pleiades.

Yea, o'er the fencing wall a lion sprang

Ravening, and lapped his fill of blood of kings.

Such prelude spoken to the gods in full,

To you I turn, and to the hidden thing

Whereof ye spake but now : and in that thought

I am as you, and what ye say, say I.

For few are they who have such inborn grace,

As to look up with love, and envy not,

When stands another on the height of weal.

AGAMEMNON 37

Deep in his heart, whom jealousy hath seized,
Her poison lurking doth enhance his load ;
For now beneath his proper woes he chafes,
And sighs withal to see another's weal.

I speak not idly, but from knowledge sure
There be who vaunt an utter loyr Ity,
That is but as the ghost of frier Jship dead,
A shadow in a glass, of faith gone by.
One only- he who went reluctant forth
Across the seas with me Odysseus he
Was loyal unto me *vith strength and will,
A trusty trace-horse bound unto my car.
Thus be he yet beneath the light of day,
Or uoad, as well I fear I speak his praise.

Lastly, whatever be due to men or gods,
With joint debate, in public council held,
We will decide, and warily contrive
That all which now is well may so pbicle :
For that which haply needs the healer's art,
That will we medicine, discerning well
If cautery or knife befit the time.

Now, to my palace and the shrines of home,
I will pass in, and greet you first and fair,
Ye gods, who bade me forth, and home again
And long may Victory tarry in my train !

[Enter Clytemnestra, followed by maidens
bearing pitrple robes.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Old men of Argos, lieges of our realm,

Shame shall not bid me shrink lest ye should see

38 AGAMEMNON

The love I bear my lord. Such blushing fear
Dies at the last from hearts of human kind.
From mine own soul and fum no alier lips,
I know and will reveal the life I bore,
Reluctant, through the lingering livelong years,
The while my lord beleaguered I lion's wall.

First, that a wife "at sundered from her lord,

In widowed solitude, was utter woe

And woe, to hear how rumour's many tongues

All boded evil woe, when he who came

And he who followed spake of ill on ill,

Keening Lost, lost, all lost ! thro' hall and bower.

Had this my husband met so many wounds,

As by a thousand channels rumour told,

No network e'er was full of boles as he.

Had he been slain, as oft as tidings came

That he was dead, he well might boast him now

A second Geryon of triple frame,

With triple robe of earth above him laid

For that below, no matter triply dead,

Dead by one death for every form he bore.

And thus distraught by news of wrath and woe,

Oft for self-slaughter had I slung the noose,

But others wrenched it from my neck away.

Hence haps it that Orestes, thine and mine,

The pledge and symbol of our wedded troth,

Stands not beside us now, as he should stand.

Nor marvel thou at this : he dwells with one

Who guards him loyally ; 'tis Phocis' king,

Strophius, who warned me erst, Bethink thee, queen,

What woes of doubtful issue well may fall J

Thy lord in daily jeopardy at Troy,

While here a populace uncurbed may cry

" Down with the council, down / " bethink thee too.

AGAMEMNON 39

the worlds way to set a harder heel
On fallen power,

FO T thy child's absence then
Such mine excuse, no wily afterthought.
For me, long sinc^ the gushing fount of tears
Is wept away ; no drop is left to shed.
Dim are the eyes that ever watched till dawn,
Weeping, the bale-fires, piled for thy return,
Night after night unkindled. .f I slept,
Each sound the tiny humming of a gnat,
Roused me again, again, from fitful dreams
Wherein I felt thee smitten, saw thee slain,
Thrice for each moment of mine hour of sleep.

All this I bore, and now, released from woe,

I hail my lord as watch-dog of a fold,

As saving suiy-rope of a storm-tossed ship,

As column stout that holds the roof aloft,

As onty child unto a sire bereaved,

As land beheld, past hope, by crews forlorn,

As sunshine fair when tempest's wrath is past,

As gushing spring to thirsty wayfarer.

So sweet it is to 'scape the press of pain.

With such salute I bid my husband hail !

Nor heaven be wroth therewith ! for long and hard

I bore that ire of old.

Sweet lord, step forth,

Step from thy car, I pray nay, not on earth
Plant the proud foot, O king, that trod down Troy !
Women ! why tarry ye, whose task it is
To spread your monarch's path wit\ tapestry ?
Swift, swift, with purple strew his passage fair,
That justice lead him to a home, at last,
He scarcely looked to see.

For what remains,

40 AGAMEMNON

Zeal unsubdued by sleep shall nerve my hand
To work as right and as the gods command.

AGAMEMNON

Daughter of Leda, watcher o^r my home,
Thy greeting well befits mine absence long,
For late and hardly has it reached its end.
Know, that the praise which honour bids us crave,
Must come from others' lips, not from our own :
See too that not in fashion feminine
Thou make a warrior's pathway delicate ;
Not unto me, as to some Eastern lord,
Bowing thyself to earth, make homage loud.
Strew not this purple that shall make each step
An arrogance ; such pomp beseems the god r ,
Not me. A mortal man to set his foot
On these rich dyes ? I hold such pride in fear,
And bid thee honour me as man, not god.
Fear not such footcloths and all gauds apart,
Loud from the trump of Fame my name is blown
Best gift of heaven it is, in glory's hour,
To think thereon with soberness : and thou
Bethink thee of the adage, Call none blest
Till peaceful death have crowned a life ofiveaL
'Tis said x : I fain would fare unvexed by fear.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Nay, but unsay it thwart not thou my will !

AGAMEMNON
Know, I ha^ 2 said, and will not mar my word.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Was it fear made this meekness to the gods ?
1 Reading " elirov rdd' " with Weil.

AGAMEMNON 41

AGAMEMNON
If cause be cause, 'tis min2 for this resolve.

CLYTEMNESTRA
What, think'st thou, in thy place had Priam done ?

AGAMEMNON
He surely would have walked on broidered robes,

CLYTEMNESTRA
Then fear not thou the voice of hu|nan blame.

AGAMEMNON
Yet mighty is the murmur of a crowd.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Shrink not from envy, appanage of bliss.

AGAMEMNON
War is not woman's part, nor war of words.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Yet happy victors well may yield therein.

AGAMEMNON
Dost crave for triumph in this petty strife ?

CLYTEMNESTRA
Yield ; of thy grace permit me to j: "evail !

AGAMEMNON

Then, if thou wilt, let some one stoop to loose
Swiftly these sandals, slaves beneath my foot :

42 AGAMEMNON

And stepping thus upon the sea's rich dye,

I pray, Let none among the gods look down

With jealous eye on me reluctant all,

To trample thus and mar a thing of price,

Wasting the wealth of garments silver- worth.

Enough hereof: and, for the stranger maid,

Lead her within, but gently : God on high

Looks graciously en him whonr triumph's hour

Has made not pitiless. None willingly

Wear the slave's yoke and she, the pme and flower

Of all we won, comes hither in my train,

Gift of the army to its chief and lord.

Now, since in this my will bows down to thine,

I will pass in on purples to my home.

CLYTEMNETRA

A Sea there is and who shall stay its springs ?
And deep within its breast, a mighty store,
Precious as silver, of the purple dye,
Whereby the dipped robe doth its tint renev.
Enough of such, O king, within thy halls
There lies, a store that cannot fail ; but I
I would have gladly vowed unto the gods
Cost of a thousand garments trodden thus,
(Had once the oracle such gift required)
Contriving ransom for thy life preserved.
For while the stock is firm the foliage climbs,
Spreading a shade, what time the dog-star glows ;
And thou, returning to thine hearth and home,
Art as a genial warmth in winter hours,
Or as a coolness, when the lord of heaven
Mellows the juice within the bitter grape.
Such boons and more doth bring into a home
The present footstep of its proper lord.

AGAMEMNON 43

Zeus, Zeus, Fulfilment's lord ! my vows fulfil,
And whatsoe'er it be, work forth thy will !

\Eveunt all bt Cdssandra and the Chants.

CHORUS

Wherefore for eve~ on the wings of fear

Hovers a vision drear
Before my boding heart ? a strrm,
Unbidden and unwelcome, thrills min j ear,

Oraculrr of pain.

Not as of old upon my bosom's throne
Sits Confidence, cO spurn

Such fears, like dreams we know not to discern.
Old. old and gray long since the time has grown,

Which saw the linked cables moor
The fleet, when erst it came to I lion's sandy shore ;
And now mine eyes and not another's see
Their safe return.

Vet none the less in me
The inner spirit sings a boding song,

Self-prompted, sings the Furies' strain

And seeks, and seeks in vain,

To hope and to be strong !

Ah ! to some end of Fate, unseen, unguessed,

Are these wild throbbings of my heart and

breast
Yea, of some doom they tell

Each pulse, a knell.
Lief, lief I were, that all
To unfulfilment's hidden realm might fall.

Too far, too far our mortal spirits strive,
Grasping at utter weal, unsatisfied

44 AGAMEMNON

Till the fell curse, that dwelleth hard beside,
Thrust down the sundering wall. Too fair they

blow,

The gales that waft our bark on Fortune's tide !
Swiftly we sail, the sooner all to drive
Upon the hidden rock, the reef of woe.

Then if the L and of caution warily

Sling forth i.ito the sea

Part of the freight, lest all should sink below,
From the deep death it saves the bark : even so,
Doom-laden though it be, once more may rise
His household, who is timelv wise.

How oft the famine-stricken field
Is saved by God's large gift, the new year's yield !

But blood of man ouce spilled,
Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the

plain,
Nor chant nor charm can call it back again.

So Zeiio hath willed :
Else had he spared the leech Asclepius, skilled

To bring man from the dead : the hand divine
Did smite himself with death a warning and a sign.

Ah me ! if Fate, ordained of old,
Held not the will of gods constrained, controlled,
Helpless to us-ward, and apart
Swifter than speech my heart
Had poured its presage out !
Now, fretting, Jiafing in the dark of doubt,

'Tis hopeless to unfold
Truth, from fear's tangled skein ; and, yearning to

proclaim
Its thought, my sojol ij^j^j^l^yji^^

AGAMEMNON 45

Re-enter CLYTEMNESTRA

Get thee within thou coo, Cassandra, go !

For Zeus to thee in gracious mercy grants

To share the sprinklings of the lustral bowl,

Beside the altar of his guardianship,

Slave among many slaves. What, haughty still ?

Step from the car; Alcmena's ?on, ; tis said,

Was sold perforce and bore the yoke ^f old.

Ay, hard ; t is, but, if such fate befall,

'Tis a fair chance to serve within a home

Of ancient wealth rnd power. An upstart lord,

To whom weaMi's harvest came beyond his hope,

Is as a lion to his slaves, in all

Exceeding fierce, immoderate in sway.

Pass in : thou nearest what our ways will be.

CHORUS

Clear unto thee, O maid, is her command,
But thou within the toils of Fate thou art
If such thy will, I urge thee to o'^ey ;
Yet I misdoubt thou clost nor hear nor heed,

CLYTEMNESTRA

I W ot unless like swallows she doth use
Some strange barbarian tongue from oversea
My words must speak persuasion to her soul.

CHORUS

Obey : there is no gentler way than this.
Step from the car's high seat and follow her.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Truce to this bootless waiting here without !
I will not stay : beside the central shrine

46 AGAMEMNON

The victims stand, prepared for knife and fire
Offerings from hearts beyond all hope made glad.
Thou- if thou reckest aught of my command,
'Twere well done soon : but if thy sense be shut
From these my words, let thy barbarian hand
Fulfil by gesture the default of sneech.

CHORUS

No native is she, thus to read thy words
Unaided : like some wild tning of the wood,
New-trapped, behold ! she shrinks and glares on thee.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Tis madness and the rule of mind distraught,
Since she beheld her city sink in fire,
And hither comes, nor brooks the bit, until
In foam and blood her wrath be champed away.
See ye to her ; unqueenly 'tis for me,
Unheeded thus to cast away my words.

{Exit Clyt&nnestra.

CHORUS

But with me pity sits in anger's place.

Poor maiden, come thou from the car ; no way

There is but this take up thy servitude.

CASSANDRA

Woe, woe, alas ! Earth, Mother Earth ! and thou
Apollo, Apollo '<

CHORUS

Peace ! shriek not to the bright prophetic god,
Who will not brook the suppliance of woe.

AGAMEMNON 47

CASSANDRA

Woe, woe, alas ! EarLi, Mother Earth ! and thou
Apollo, Apollo !

CHORUS

Hark, with wild curse she calls anew on him,
Who stands far off and loathes the voice of wail.

CASSANDRA
Apollo, Apollo !

God of all ways, but only Death's to me,
Once and again, O ihou, Destroyer named,
Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old ! l

1 The cries of Cassandra need special explanation. Apollo,
the god who had endowed her with prophetic power, and then,
angered by her rejection of his suit, caused her prophecy to be
disbelieved was called tiyvidrys, i.e. god of streets or ways ;
and it was usual to erect a rough statue to him at particular
points of a road. No doubt such a statue was to be seen in
front of the palace of Atreus. Apollo also, as a name, is, or
at any rate closely resembles, the Greek wo r d for " Destroyer"
(familiar to readers of Pilgrim s Progress as Apollyon). It
will be seen therefore how much method is in the madness of
Cassandra. She sees the statue of Apollo the way-god, and
cries aloud of the weary way he has sent her to her doom,
himself the Destroyer first of her fame, and now of her life.
Her death, and that of Agamemnon, are actually present to
her vision, though in confused forms ; and the ancient ills of
the house of Atreus, her own happy childhood, the recent fall
of Troy, the spectres of Thyestes* children, the vengeful god
tearing from her the prophetic robe, the fate of Clytemnestra
herself in after days all pass before her ; then, with a piteous
cry of utter pathos over the state of mortal men, she goes
within the palace, to confront her foreseen doom.

The office of a translator, never a very hopeful one, becomes
despair itself in the endeavour to reproduce this scene. The
ravings of Lear have not its terror, nor those of Ophelia or
Gretchen its pathos. The language has put away the besetting
sin ot ^schylus* earlier dramas a certain grandiose and stilted

48 AGAMEMNON

CHORUS

She grows presageful of her .yoes to come,
Slave tho' she be, instinct with prophecy.

CASSANDRA
Apollo, Apollo !
God of all ways, but only Death's to me,

character : here it is alternately wild with the actual insphation
of prophecy, and piteous with the sense of w akness, of the
inevitable doom, of the ^xOlffrvj 6Stivi), TroXXot (frpovtovTa wdev&s
Kparteiv "the worst of agonies, to know much and yet to
avail nought." The cadence is sometimes one long sigh

l& ppbreLa TT pay /mar*'
, TLS

sometimes a voice broken with thick sobs,

lu tcb Aryefas

ireptpdXov yap ol Trrepcxpdpov

Oeol, y\VKVJ> r al&v a /cXai'^arw^ tirep

sometimes strong and queenly with pride and scorn,

avTrj ci,. ous X^a/a, (riryKOtjLtw/xtV??
\tiKt*), X^o^ros ei^/e^oOs Atrovcrig. ~

sometimes frantic with hysterical terror,

6/3are roi/crfo, TOI)J
vtovs, dvdpwv

lastly, grave with the pathos of confronted death,
rl Syr 1 yw tcdrotKOs &5* &va<rTtvu ;
tirel rb irp&Tov eTSov 'I\tov irb\w
Trpdj-acrav ws ^Trpafe^, ol 5' elXov ir6\u> t
otirws dira\\dcr<Tov(nv v Qe&v Kpl<rei t
lovav irpdi-u, r\?j<royucu r^ KarOav&v.

Here, therefore, the translator maybe allowed to fall back upon
the humbler task of telling the reader what is to be found in
the original, before endeavouring to call up its ghost in English.
iroXXA ffrpovtovTa, ijydtvbs fcpar^eiv, is not a bad account of the
process of translation, nnd nowhere more applicable than here.

AGAMEMNON 49

O thou Apollo, thou Destroyer named !
What way hast led me, to what evil home ?

CHORUS

Know'st thou it not ? The home of Atreus' race :
Take these my words for sooth and ask no more.

CASSANDRA

Home cursed of God ! Bear witness unt~ me,

Ye visioned woes within

The blood-stained hands of them that smite their kin
The strangling noose, ind, spattered o'er
With human bloo^, the reeking floor !

CHORUS

How like a sleuth-hound questing on the track,
Keen-scented unto blood and death she hies I

CASSANDRA

Ah ! can the ghostly guidance fail,
Whereby my prophet-soul is onwards led ?
Look ! for their flesh the spectre-children wail,
Their sodden limbs on which their father fed !

CHORUS

Long since we knew of thy prophetic fame,
But for those deeds we seek no prophet's tongue.

CASSANDRA

God ! 'tis another crime
Worse than the storied woe of olden tin.e,
Cureless, abhorred, that one is plotting here
A shaming death, for those that should be dear !

Alas ! and far away, in foreign land,

He that should help doth stand !
E

So AGAMEMNON

CHORUS

I knew th j old tales, fhe city rings withal
But now thy speech is dark, beyond f my ken.

CASSANDRA

O wretch, O purpose fell !
Thou for thy wedded lord t
The cleansing wave hast poured
A treacherous welcome !

How the sequel tell ?

Too soon 'twill come, too soon, for now, even now,
She smites him, blow on blow !

CHORUS

Riddles beyond my rede I peer in vain
Thro' the dim films that screen the prophecy.

CASSANDRA

God ! a new sight ! a net, a snare of hell,
Set by her ha id herself a snare more fell !

A wedded wife, she slays her lord,
Helped by another hand !

Ye powers, whose hate
Of Atreus' home no blood can satiate,
Raise the wild cry above the sacrifice abhorred !

CHORUS

Why biddest thou some fiend, I know not whom,
Shriek o'er the house ? Thine is no cheering word.
Back to my heart in frozen fear I feel
My wanning life-blood run
The blood that round the wounding steel
Ebbs slow, as sinks life's parting sun
Swift, swift and sure, some woe comes pressing on I

AGAMEMNON 51

CASSANDRA

Away, away keep him away
The monarch of the herd, the pasture's pride,
Far from his mate ! In treach'rous wrath,
Muffling his swarthy horns, with secret scathe

She gores his fenceless side !
Hark ! in the brimming bath,
The heavy plash tne dying cry
Har 1 : in the laver hark, he falls by treachery !

CHORUS

I read amiss dark sayings such as thine,
Yet something warns me that they tell of ill.

O dark prophetic speech,

111 *idings dost thou teach

Ever, to mortals here below !

Ever some tale of awe and woe

Thro' all thy windings manifold

Do we unriddle and unfold !

CASSANDRA

Ah well-a-day ! the cup of agony,
Whereof I chant, foams with a draught for me.
Ah lord, ah leader, thou hast led me here
Was't but to die with thee whose doom is near ?

CHORUS

Distraught thou art, divinely stirred,
And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay,
As piteous as the ceaseless tale
Wherewith the brown melodious bird
Doth ever Itys I Itys ! wail,
Deep-bowered in sorrow, all its little life-time's day !

52 AGAMEMNON

CASSANDRA

Ah for thy fate, O shrill-voiced nightingale !
Some solace for thy voes did Heaven afford,
Clothed thee with soft brown plumes, and life apart

from wail
But for my death is edged the double-biting sword *

CHORUS

What pargs are these, what fruitless pain,

Sent on thee from on high ?
Thou chantest terror's frantic strain,
Yet in shrill measured melody.
How thus unerring canst thou sweep along
The prophet's path of boding song ?

CASSANDRA

Woe, Paris, woe on thee ! Uiy bi'ida* joy
Was death anu fire upon thy race and Troy !
And woe for thee, Scamander's flood !
Beside thy banks, O river fair,
I grew in Bender nursing care
From childhood unto maidenhood !
Now not by thine, but by Cocytus' stream
And Acheron's banks shall ring my boding scream.

CHORUS

Too plain is all, too plain !
A child might read aright thy fateful strain.

Deep in my heart their piercing fang

Terror and sorrow set, the while I heard

That piteous, low, tender word,
Yet to mine ear and heart a crushing pang.

CASSANDRA

Woe for my city, woe for Ilion's fall !
Father, how oft with sanguine stain

AGAMEMNON 53

Streamed on thine altar-stone the blood of cattle,

slain

That heaven might guard our wall !
But all was shed in vain.
Low lie the shr.ttererl towers whereas they fell,
And I ah bur ling heart ! shall soon lie low as

well.

CHORUS
Of sorrow is thy song, of sorrow st"J !

Ala? what power of ill
Sits heavy on thy heart and bids thee tell
In tears of perfect moan thy deadly tale ?
Some woe I krow not what must close thy piteous

wail.

CASSANDRA

List ! for no more the presage of my soul,
Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil ;
But as the morning wind blows clear the east,
More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,
And as against the low bright line of dawn
Heaves high and higher yet the rolling wave,
So in the clearing skies of prescience
Dawns on my soul a further, deadlier woe,
And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.
Bear witness, ye, and follow at my side
I scent the trail of blood, shed long ago.
Within this house a choir abidingly
Chants in harsh unison the chant of ill ;
Yea, and they drink, for more enhardened joy,
Man's blood for wine, and revel in the halls,
Departing never, Furies of the home.
They sit within, they chant the primal curse,
Each spitting hatred on that crime of old,
The brother's couch, the love incestuous
That brought forth hatred to the ravisher.

54 AGAMEMNON

Say, is my speech or wild and erring now,
Or doth its arrow cleave fie mark indeed ?
They called me once, < The prophetess of lies,
The wandering hag^ the pest of every door
Attest ye now, She knous in rery sooth
The houses curse^ the storied ; nfamy*

CHORUS

Yet how bhould oath how loyally soe'er
I swear it aught avail thee ? In go^d sooth,
My wonder meets thy claim : I stand amazed
That thou, a maiden born beyond the seas,
Dost as a native know and tell ailght
Tales of a city of an alien tongue.

CASSANDRA
That is my power a boon Apollo gave.

CHORUS
God though , he were, yearning for mortal maid?

CASSANDRA
Ay ! what seemed shame of old is shame no more.

CHORUS
Such finer sense suits not with slavery.

CASSANDRA
He strove to win me, panting for my love.

CHORUS
Came ye by compact unto bridal joys ?

CASSANDRA
Nay for I plighted troth, then foiled the god.

AGAMEMNON 55

CHORUS
Wert thou already dowered with prescience ?

CASSANDRA
Yea prophetess t Q Troy of all her doom.

CHORUS
How left thee then Apollo's wrath unscathed?

CASSANDRA
I, false to him, seemed prophet false to all.

CHORUS
Not so to us at least thy words seem sooth.

CASSANDRA

Woe for me, woe ! Again the agony

Dread pain that sees the future all too well

With ghastly preludes whirls and racks my soul.

BehoH ye yonder on the palace uof

The spectre-children sitting look, such things

As dreams are made on, phantoms as of babes,

Horrible shadows, that a kinsman's hand

Hath marked with murder, and their arms are full

A rueful burden see, they hold them up,

The entrails upon which their father fed !

For this, for this, I say there plots revenge
A coward lion, couching in the lair
Guarding the gate against my master's foot
My master mine I bear the slave's yoke now.
And he, the lord of ships, who trod down Troy,
Knows not the fawning treachery of tongue
Of this thing false and dog-like how her speech

$6 AGAMEMNON

Glozes and sleeks her purpose, till she win
By ill fate's favour the desired chance,
Moving like At& to a secret end.

aweless soul ! the woman slays her lord
Woman ? what loathsome monster of the earth
Were fit comparison? The doible snake
Or Scylla, where she dwells, the seaman's bane,
Girt round about with rocks ? jome hag of hell,
Raving a triceless curse upon her kin ?

Hark even now she cries exultingly
The vengeful cry that tells of battle turned
How fain, forsooth, to greet her chief restored 1
Nay then, believe me not : what skills belief
Or disbelief? Fate works its will and thou
Wilt see and say in ruth, Her tale was true.

CHORUS

Ah 'tis Thyestes' feast on kindred flesh

1 guess her meaning and with horror thrill,
Hearing no shadow' d hint of th' o'er-true tale,
But its full hat^fUness : yet, for the rest,

Far from the track I roam, and know no mo r e.

CASSANDRA
'Tis Agamemnon's doom thou shalt behold.

CHORUS
Peace, hapless woman, to thy boding words I

CASSANDRA
Far from my speech stands he who sains and saves.

CHORUS
Ay were such doom at hand which God forbid !

AGAMEMNON 57

CASSANDRA
Thou prayest idly these move swift to slay.

CHORUS
Whav man prepares i :leed of such despite ?

CASSANDRA
Fool ! thus to read amiss mine oracles.

CHOxUJS
Deviser and device are dark to me.

CASSANDRA

Dark ! all too well I speak the Grecian tongue
CHORUS

Ay but in thine, as in Apollo's strains,
Familiar is the tong'ue, but dark the thought.

CASSANDRA

Ah ah the fire ! it waxes, nears me now
Woe, wee for me, Apollo of the dawn !

Lo, how the woman-thing, the lioness
Couched with the wolf her noble mate afar
Will slay me, slave forlorn ! Yea, like some witch,
She drugs the cup of wrath, that slays her lord,
With double death his recompense for me !
Ay, 'tis for me, the prey he bore from Troy,
That she hath sworn his death, and edged the steel !
Ye wands, ye wreaths that cling around my neck,
Ye showed me prophetess yet scorned of all
I stamp you into death, or e'er I die
Down, to destruction !

Thus I stand revenged

58 AGAMEMNON

Go, crown some other with a prophet's woe.

Look ! it is he, it is Apoll Vs self

Rending from me the prophet-robe he gave.

God ! while I wore it yet, thou saw'si me mocked

There at my home by erch malicious mouth

To all and each, an undivided scorn.

The name alike and fate of witch and cheat

Woe, poverty, and famine all I bore ; l

And at uJs last the god hath brought me here

Into death's toils, and what his love had made,

His hate unmakes me now : and I shall stand

Not now before the altar of my home,

But me a slaughter-house and block of blood

Shall see hewn down, a reeking sacrifice.

Yet shall the gods have heed of me who die,

For by their will shall one requite my doom.

He, to avenge his father's blood outpoured,

Shall smite and slay with matricidal hand.

Ay, he shall come tho' far away he roam,

A banished wanderer in a stranger's land

To crown his kindred's edifice of ill,

Called home to vengeance by his father's fall :

Thus have the high gods sworn, and shall fulfil.

And now why mourn I, tarrying on earth,

Since first mine I lion has found its fate

And I beheld, and those who won the wall

Pass to such issue as the gods ordain ?

1 Though the resemblance is probably accidental, it is
impossible not to be reminded of this passage by the last fare-
well of Meg Merrilies (Guy Mannering, ch. 55) "When I
was in life, I was the mad randy gipsy, that had been scourged,
and banished, and branded that had begged from door to
door, and been hounded like a stray tike from parish to parish
wha would hae minded her tale ? But now I am a dying
woman, and my words will not fall to the ground, any more
than the earth will cover my blood ! "

AGAMEMNON 59

I too will pass and like them dare to die !

[Turns ant looks upon the palace door.
Portal of Hades, thus I bid tbee hail !
Grant me one boon a swift and mortal stroke,
That all un wrung by pain, l \vith ebbing blood
Shed forth in quiet death, I close mine eyes.

CHORUS

Maid of mysterious woes, mysterious lore,

Long was th) prophecy : b;at if aright

Thou readest all thy fate, how, thus unscared,

Dost thou approach the altar of thy doom,

* s fronts the knife some victim, heaven-controlled ?

CASSANDRA
Friends, there i ls no avcidance in delay.

CHORUS
Yet who delays the longest, his the gain.

CASSANDRA
The day is come flight were small gam to me t

CHORUS
O brave endurance of a soul resolved 1

CASSANDRA
That were ill praise, for those of happier doom.

CHORUS
All fame is happy, even famous death.

CASSANDRA

Ah sire, ah brethren, famous once were ye \

[She moves, to enter the house> then starts back.

60 AGAMEMNON

CHORUS
What fear is this that ^care's thee from the house ?

CASSANDRA
Pah !

CHORUS
What is this cry ? some dark Niespair of soul ?

CASSANDRA
Pah ! the house fumes with stench and spilth of blood.

CHORUM
How ? 'tis the smell of household offerings.

CASSANDRA
Tis rank as charnel-scent fro\n open graves.

CHORUS
Thou canst not mean this scented Syrian nard ? l

CASSANDRA

Nay, let me pass within to cry aloud

The monarch's fate and mine enough of life.

Ah friends I

Bear to me witness, since I fall in death,

That not as birds that shun the bush and scream 2

1 The Syrian scent, to which the Chorus attribute Cassandra's
disgust (which is in reality the quickened and prophetic fore-
sense of blood soon to be shed), is either from some perfume
burning on the altars within, or possibly, as has been suggested
to me, the scent of perfumed cedar boxes, in which the bright
purples strewn upon the path have been preserved.

3 "Birds that shun the bush," i.e. birds that have been
limed in a bush. Cf. Henry VI. , Part iii. , Act v. , Sc. 6 :
" The bird that hath been limed in a bush, v

With trembling wings misdoubtet\i every bush."

AGAMEMNON 61

I moan in idle terror. This attest
When for my death's revr nge another dies,
A woman for a woman, and a man
Falls, for a man ill-wedded t6 his curse.
Grant me this boon the Ir.st before I die.

CHORUS
Brave to the last ! I mourn thy doom foreseen.

CASSANDRA

Once more one utterance, but not of wail,
Though for my death and then I speak no more.

C| m ! thou whose beam I shall not see again,
To thee I cry, Let those whom vengeance calls
To slay their kindred's slayers, quit withal
The death of me, the slave, the fenceless prey. 1

Ah state of mortal man ! in time of weal,

A line, a shadow ! and if ill fate fall,

One wet sponge-sweep wipes all our trace away

And this I deem less piteous, of the iwain.

[Exit into the palace.

CHORUS

Too true it is ! our mortal state
With bliss is never satiate,
And none, before the palace high
And stately of prosperity,
Cries to us with a voice of fear,
Away ! ''tis ill to enter here f

Lo ! this our lord hath trodden down,
By grace of heaven, old Priam's town,

1 I have adopted here the conjectural emendations of Dr.
Kennedy.

62 AGAMEMNON

And praised as god he stands once more
On Argos' shore !
Yet now if blood shed long ago
Cries out that other blood shall flow
His life-blood, his, to pay again
The stern requital of the slain -
Peace to that braggart's vaunting vain,
Who, having heard the chitftain's tale,
Yet boat's of bliss untouched by bale !

[A lottd cry from within.

VOICE OF AGAMEMNON
O I am sped a deep, a mortal blow.

CHORUS
Listen, listen ! who is screaming as in mortal agony?

VOICE OF AGAMEMNON
O ! O ! again, another, another blow !

CHORUS

The bloody act is over I have heard the monarch's

cry-
Let us swiftly take some counsel, lest we too be

doomed to die.

ONE OF THE CHORUS

'Tis best, I judge, aloud for aid to call,
" Ho ! loyal Argives ! to the palace, all ! "

ANOTHER

Better, I deem, ourselves to bear the aid,

And drag the deed to light, while drips the blade.

AGAMEMNON 63

ANOTHER

Such will is mine, and what thou say'st I say :
Swiftly to act ; the time brooks no delay.

ANOTHER

Ay, for 'tis plain, this prelude of their song
Foretells its close in tyranny and wrong.

ANOTHER

Behold, we tarry but thy name, Delay,

They spurn, and press with sleepless hand to slay.

ANOTHER

I know not what 'twere well to counsel now
Who wills to act, 'tis his to counsel how.

ANOTHER

Thy doubt is mine : for when a man is slain,
I have no words to bring his life again.

ANOTHER

What ? e'en for life's sake, bow us to obey
These house-defilers and their tyrant sway ?

ANOTHER

Unmanly doom ! 'twere better far to die
Death is a gentler lord than tyranny.

ANOTHER

Think well must cry or sign of woe or pain
Fix our conclusion that the chief is slain ?

ANOTHER

Such talk befits us when the deed we see
Conjecture dwells afar from certainty.

64 AGAMEMNON

LEADER OF THE CHORUS

I read one will from many a diverse word,
To know aright, how stands it with out lord !

[The scene opens, disclosing Clytemnestra, who
comes forward. Tht body of Agamemnon
lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver-
sided laver; the corpse of Cassandra is
'aid beside him.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ho, ye who heard me speak so long and oft

The glozing word that led me to my will

Hear how I- shrink not to unsay it all !

How else should one who willeth to requite

Evil for evil to an enemy

Disguised as friend, weave tne mesh straitly round

him,

Not to be overleaped, a net of doom ?
This is the sum and issue of old strife,
Of me deep-pondered and at length fulfilled.
All is avowed, and as I smote I stand
With foot set firm upon a finished thing !
I turn not to denial : thus I wrought
So that he could nor flee nor ward his doom.
Even as the trammel hems the scaly shoal,
I trapped him with inextricable toils,
The ill abundance of a baffling robe ;
Then smote him, once, again and at each wound
He cried aloud, then as in death relaxed
Each limb and sank to earth ; and as he lay,
Once more I smote him, with the last third blow,
Sacred to Hades, saviour of the dead.
And thus he fell, and as he passed away,
Spirit with body chafed ; each dying breath

AGAMEMNON 63

Flung from his breast swift bubbling jets of gore,

And the dark sprinklings of the rain of blood

Fell upon me ; and I was fain to feel

That dew r;ot sweeter is the rain of heaven

To cornland, when the green sheath teems with grain.

1 i
Elders of Argos since the thing stands so,

I bid you to rejoice, K such your will :
Rejoice or not, I vaunt and praise the de^d,
Ana v r ell I ween, if seemly it could be,
'Twere not ul done to pour libations here,
Justly ay, more than justly on his corpse
Who filled his home with curses as with wine,
And thus returned to drain the cup he filled.

CHORUS

I marvel at thy tongue's audacity,

To vaunt thus loudly o'er a husband slain.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ye hold me as a woman, weak of will,

And strive to sway me : but my heart is stout,

Nor fears to speak its uttermost to you,

Albeit ye know its message. Praise or blame,

Even as ye list, I reck not of your words.

Lo ! at my feet lies Agamemnon slain,

My husband once and him this hand of mine,

A right contriver, fashioned for his death.

Behold the deed !

CHORUS

Woman, what deadly birth,
What venomed essence of the earth
Or dark distilment of the wave.
To thee such passion gave,
F

66 AGAMEMNON

Nerving thine hand

To set upon thy brow this burning crown,

The curses of thy land ?
Our king by thee cu ' ojfi hewn down /

Go forth they cry accursld and forlorn ',
To hate and scorn /

CLYTEMNESTRA

O ye ju5 f men, who speak my sentence now,

The city's hate, the ban of all my realm !

Ye had no voice of old to launch such doom

On him, my husband, when he held as light

My daughter's life as that of sheep or goat,

One victim from the thronging fleecy fold !

Yea, slew in sacrifice his child and mine,

The well-loved issue of my travail-pangs,

To lull and lay the gales th^c blew from Thrace.

That deed of lais, I say, that stain and shame,

Had rightly been atoned by banishment ;

But ye, who then were dumb, are stern to judge

This deed of mine that doth affront your ears.

Storm out your threats, yet knowing this for sooth,

That I am ready, if your hand prevail

As mine now doth, to bow beneath your sway :

If God say nay, it shall be yours to learn

By chastisement a late humility.

CHORUS

Bold is thy craft, and proud
Thy confidence, thy vaunting loud ;
Thy soul, that chose a murd'ress' fate,

Is all with blood elate

Maddened to know
The blood not yet avenged, the damn&d spot

Crimson upon thy brow.

AGAMEMNON 67

But Fate prepares for thee thy lot
Smitten as thou dids f , smite, without a friend,
To meet thine end !

CLYTEMNESTRA*

Hear then the sanction of the oath I swear
By the great vengeance for my murdered child,
By At&, by the Fury unto whom *
This man lies sacrificed by hand of nvne,
I do not look to tread the hall of Fear,
While in .his hearth ana home of mine there burns
The light of love ^Egisthus as of old
Loyal, a stalwart shield of confidence
As true to me as this slain man was false,
Wronging his wife with paramours at Troy,
Fresh from the kiss of each Chryseis there !
Behold hiki dead behold his captive prize,
Seeress and harlot comfort of his bed,
True prophetess, true paramour I wot
The sea-bench was not closer to the flesh,
Full oft, of every rower, than was she.
See, ill they did, and ill requites them now.
His ueath ye know : she as a dying swan
Sang her last dirge, and lies, as erst she lay,
Close to his side, and to my couch has left
A sweet new taste of joys that know no fear.

CHORUS
Ah woe and well-a-day ! I would that Fate

Not bearing agony too great,
Nor stretching me too long on couch of pain

Would bid mine eyelids keep
The morningless and una wakening sleep ! l

1 " For there thine earth-forgetting eyelids keep
The morningless and unawakening sleep."

M. ARNOLD, Thyrsis.

68 AGAMEMNON

For life is weary, now my lord is slain,

The gracious aimng kings !
Hard fate of old he bore and many grievous things,

And for a woman' _ sake, on Iliai* land
Now is his life hewn do\\n, and by a woman's hand.

O Helen, O infatuate soul,
Who bad'st the tidrs of battle roll,
O'erwhclming thousands, life on life,
'Neath I lion's wall !
And now lies dead ihe lord of all.

The blossom of thy storied sin

Bears blood's inexpiable stain,

O thou that erst, these halls within,

Wert unto all a rock of strife,
A husband's bane !

CLYTEMNESTRA

Peace ! pray not thou for death as though
Thine heart was whelmed beneath this woe,
Nor turn thy wrath aside to ban
The name of Helen, nor recall
How she, one bane of many a man,
Sent down to death the Danaan lords,
To sleep at Troy the sleep of swords,
And wrought the woe that shattered all.

CHORUS
Fiend of the race ! that swoopest fell

Upon the double stock of Tantalus,
Lording it o'er me by a woman's will,
Stern, manful, and imperious
A bitter sway to me !
Thy very form I see,

Like some grim raven, perched upon the slain,
Exulting o'er the crime, aloud, in tuneless strain !

AGAMEMNON 69

CLYTEMNESTRA

Right was that word thor* namest well
The brooding race-fiend, triply fell !
From him it is that murder's thirst,
Blood-lapping, inwardly is nursed
Ere time the ancient, scar can sain,
New blood comes welling forth again.

CHOIUJS

Grim is his wrath and heavy on our home,
That fiend of whom thy voice has cried,

Alas, an omened cry of woe unsatisfied,
An all-devouring doom !

Ah woe, ah Zeus ! frem Zeus all things befall
Zeus the high cause and finisher of all !

Lord of our mortal state, by him are willed
All things, by him fulfilled !

Yet ah *ny king, my king no more^.
What vords to say, what tears to pour

Can tell my love for thee ?
The spider-web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,

And lo ! I see thee lie,
And thro' a coward, impious wound

Pant forth thy life and die !
A death of shame ah woe on woe !
A t reach 'rous hand, a cleaving blow !

CLYTEMNESTRA

My guilt thou harpest, o'er and o'er !
I bid thee reckon me no more
As Agamemnon's spouse.

70 AGAMEMNON

The old Avenger, stern of mood
For Atreus and his feast of blood,

Hath struck the lord of Atreus' house,
And in the semblance of his wife

The king hath slain. ,
Yea, for the murdered children's life,
A chieftain's in requital *a'en.

CHORUS
Thou guiltless of this ourder, thou !

Who dares such thought avow ?
Yet it may be, wroth for the parent's deed,
The fiend hath holpen thee to slay the son.
Dark Ares, god of death, is pressing on
Thro' streams of blood by kindred shed,
Exacting the accompt for children dead,
For clotted blood, for flesh on which their sire did feed.

Yet ah my king, my king no more !
What words to say, what tears to pour

Can tell my love for thee ?
The spider-web of treachery
She wove and wound, thy life around,

And lo ! I see thee lie,
And thro' a coward, impious wound

Pant forth thy life and die !
A death of shame ah woe on woe !
A treacherous hand, a cleaving blow 1

CLYTEMNESTRA

I deem not that the death he died

Had overmuch of shame :
For this was he who did provide

Foul wrong unto his house and name :
His daughter, blossom of my womb,
He gave unto a deadly doom,

AGAMEMNON 71

Iphigenia, child of tears !
And as he wrought, even so he fares.
Nor be his vaunt too loud in hell ;
For by the sword his sin he wrought,
And by the sword himself is brought
Among the dead to dwell.

CHORUS

Ah whither shall I fly ?
For ah in rHn sinks the Hngly hall ;
Nor swift device nor shift of thought have I,

To 'scape its fall.

A little while the gentler rain-drops fail ;
I stand distraught a ghastly interval,
Till on the roof-tree rings the bursting hail

Of bloou a^d doom. Even now fate whets the steel

On whetstones new and deadlier than of old,
The steel that smites, in Justice 3 hold,
Another death to deal.

O Earth ! that I had lain at rest

And lapped for ever in thy breast,

Ere I had seen my chieftain fall

Within the laver's silver wall,

Low-lying on dishonoured bier !

And who shall give him sepulchre,

And who the wail of sorrow pour ?

Woman, 'tis thine no more !

A graceless gift unto his shade

Such tribute, by his murd'ress paid 1

Strive not thus wrongly to atone

The impious deed thy hand hath done.

Ah who above the god-like chief

Shall weep the tears of loyal grief?

Who speak above his lowly grave

The last sad praises of the brave ?

72 AGAMEMNON

CLYTEMNESTRA

Peace ! for such task is none of thine.

By me he fell, b> me he died,
And now his burial rues be mine !
Yet from these halls no n>ourners' train

Shall celebrate his obsequies ;
Only by Acheron's rolling tide
His ciiild shall spring unto his side,

And in a daughter' loving wise
Shall clasp and kiss him once again I

CHORUS

Lo ! sin by sin and sorrow dogg'd by sorrow

And who the end car* know ?
The slayer of to-day shall die to morrov

The wage of wrpnjjJuu\KQ*.
lile Inmig'sliaTt'Be, while Zeus ir

While Ttt1T6"sliaTt J Be, while Zeus in heaven is lord,

His law is fixed and stern ;
On him that wrought shall vengeance be outpoured

The tides of doom return.
The children of the curse abide within

These halls of high estate
And none can wrench from off the home of sin

The clinging grasp of fate.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Now walks thy word aright, to tell
This ancient truth of oracle ;
But I with vows of sooth will pray
To him, the power that holdeth sway

O'er all the race of Pleisthenes
TM dark the deed and deep the guilt ',
With this last blood^ my hands have spilt^

1 pray thee let thine anger cease !

AGAMEMNON 73

1 pray thee pass from us away
To some new rac in other lands,

There, if thou wilt, to wrong and slay
The lives of men by kindred hands.

For me 'tis all sufficient meed,
Tho 1 little wealth or power were won,
So I can say, ' Tls past and done.
The bloody lust and murderous,
1m inborn frenzy of sur house,
Is ended, by my deed/

[Enter AZgisthus.

^EGISTHUS

Dawn of the day of rightful vengeance, hail !

I dare at leng f h aver that gods above

Have care of men and heed of earthly wrongs.

I, I who stand and thus exult to see

This man lie wound in robes the Furies wove,

Slain in requital of his father's craft.

Take ye the truth, that Atreus, this man's sire,

The lord and monarch of tffis land of old,

Held with my sire Thyestes deep dispute.

Brother with brother, for the prize of sway,

And drave him from his home to banishment.

Thereafter, the lorn exile homeward stole

And clung a suppliant to the hearth divine,

And for himself won this immunity

Not with his own blood to defile the land

That gave him birth. But Atreus, godless sire

Of him who here lies dead, this welcome planned

With zeal that was not love he feigned to hold

In loyal joy a day of festal cheer,

And bade my father to his board, and set

Before him flesh that was his children once.

74 AGAMEMNON

First, sitting at the upper board alone,

He hid the fingers and the teet, but gave

The rest and readily Thyestes took

What to his ignorance nt semblance wore

Of human flesh, and ate : behold what curse

That eating brought upon our *race and name 1

For when he knew what all urhallowed thing

He thus had wrought, with horror's bitter cry

Back-starting, spewing forth the fragments foul,

On Pelops' house a deadl) curse he spa 1 .e

A s darkly as I spurn this damntd food^

So perish all the race of Pleisthenes !

Thus by that curse fell he whom here ye see,

And I who else ? this murder wove and planned ;

For me, an infant yet in swaddling bands,

Of the three a children youngest, Atreu^ sent

To banishment by my sad father's side :

But Justice brought me home once more, grown

now

To manhood's vears ; and stranger tho' I was,
My right hand reached unto the chieftain's life,
Plotting and planning all that malice bade.
And death itself were honour now to me,
Beholding him in Justice' ambush ta'en.

CHORUS

^Egisthus, for this insolence of thine
That vaunts itself in evil, take my scorn.
Of thine own will, thou sayest, thou hast slain
The chieftain, by thine own unaided plot
Devised the piteous death : I rede thee well,
Think not thy head shall 'scape, when right pre-
vails,

The people's ban, the stones of death and doom.
1 Reading dv

AGAMEMNON 75

^GISTHUS

This word from thee, this word from one who rows

Low at the oars l beneath, vvhat time we rule,

We of the upper tier ? Tnou'lt know anon,

'Tis bitter to be taugrt again in age,

By one so young, sub nission at the word.

But iron of the chain and hunger's throes

Can minister unto an o'erswoln pride

Marvelous well, ay, even in the old.

Hast eyes, and seest not this? Peace kick not

thus
Against the pricks, unto thy proper pain !

CHORUS

Thou woman'sh man, waiting till war did cease,
Home-watcher and defiler of the couch,
And arch-deviser of the chieftain's doom !

Bold words again ! but they shall end in tears.

The vei/ converse, thine, of Orpheus' tongue :

He roused and led in ecstasy of joy

All things that heard his voice melodious ;

But thou as with the futile cry of curs

Wilt draw men wrathfully upon thee. Peace !

Or strong subjection soon shall tame thy tongue.

CHORUS

Ay, thou art one to hold an Argive down
Thou, skilled to plan the murder of the king,
But not with thine own hand to smite the blow !

1 The metaphor is from a Grecian trireme, which was rowed
oy three tiers of oars, the upper being considered the most
honourable position.

76 AGAMEMNON

^GISTHUS

That fraudful force was woman's very part,
Not mine, whom deep -uspicion from of old
Would have debarred. Now by his treasure's aid
My purpose holds to rule the citizens.
But whoso will not bear my guiding hand,
Him for his corn-fed mettle I will drive
Not as a trace-horse, light-caparisoned,
But to the shafts with heaviest harnes? bou'.d.
Famine, the grim mate of the dungeon dark,
Shall look on him and shall behold him tame.

CHORUS

Thou losel soul, was then thy strength too slight
To deal in murder, while a woman's !~and,
Staining and shaming Argos and its gods,
Availed to slay him ? Ho, if anywhere
The light of life smite on Orestes' eyes,
Let him, returning by some guardian fate,
Hew down with force her paramour and her !

^EGISTHUS

How thy word and act shall issue, thou shalt shortly
understand.

CHORUS

Up to action, O my comrades ! for the fight is hard

at hand.
Swift, your right hands to the sword hilt ! bare the

weapon as for strife

Lo ! I too am standing ready, hand on hilt for death
or life.

AGAMEMNON 77

CHORUS

J Twas thy word and we accept it : onward to the
chance of war !

CLYTEMNESTRA

Nay, enough, enough^ my champion ! we will smite

'and slay no more.
Already have we reaped enough the harvest-field of

fe'ilt:
Enough of wrong and murder, let no other blood be

spilt.
Peace, old men ! and pass away unto the homes by

Fate decreed,
Lest ill valour meet our vengeance 'twas a neces-

sary deed.
But enough of toils and troubles be the end, if ever,

now,

Ere thy talon, O Avenger, deal another deadly blow.
'Tis a woman's word of warning, and let who will list

thereto.

yEGISTHUS

But that these should loose and lavish reckless

blossoms of the tongue,
And in hazard of their fortune cast upon me words of

wrong,
And forget the law of subjects, and revile their ruler's

word

CHORUS

Ruler ? but 'tis not for Argives, thus to own a dastard
lord!

J will follow to chastise thee in my coining days of
sway.

78 AGAMEMNON

CHORUS

Not if Fortune guide Orestes safely on his homeward
way.

Ah, well I know how exiles feed on hopes of their
return.

CHORUS

Fare and batten on pollution of the right, while 'tis
thy turn.

^GISTHUS

Thou shalt pay, be well assured, heavy quittance for
thy pride.

CHORUS

Crow and strut, with her to watch thee, like a cock,
his mate beside !

CLYTEMNESTRA

Heed not thou too highly of them- let the cur-pack

growl and veil :
I and thou will rule the palace and will order a^ 1

things well. \Exeunt.

THE LIBATION-BEARERS

DRAMATIC PERSONAE

ORESTES.

CHORUS OF CAPTIVE WOMEN.

ELECTRA.

A NURSE.

CLYTEMNESTRA.

/EGISTHUS.

AN ATTENDANT.

PYLADES.

The Scene is the Tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae ; after*
wards ) tne Palace of A tr ens, hard by the Tomb,

V THE LIBATION-BEARERS

ORESTES

LORD of the shades and patron of the realm

That erst my father swayed, list now my prayer,

Hermes, and save me with thine aiding arm,

Me who from oanishm^nt returning stand

On this my country ; lo, my foot is set

On this grave-mound, and herald-like, as thou,

Once and again, I bid my father hear.

And these twin locks, from mine head .shorn, 1 bring,

Aid one to Inachus the river-god,

My young life's nurturer, I dedicate,

And one in sign of mourning unfulfilled

I lay, though late, on this my father's grave.

For O my father, not beside thy corse

Stood I to wail thy death, nor was my hand

Stretched out to bear thee forth to burial.

What sight is yonder ? what this woman-throng
Hitherward coming, by their sable garb
Made manifest as mourners ? What hath chanced ?
Doth some new sorrow hap within the home ?
Or rightly may I deem that they draw near
Bearing libations, such as soothe the ire

O

82 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

Of dead men angered, to my father's grave ?
Nay, such they are indeed ; for I descry
Electra mine own sister pacing hither,
In moody grief conspicuous. Grant O Zeus,
Grant me my father's noirder to avenge
Be thou my willing champion !

Pylades,

Pass we aside, till rightly I discern
Wherefore these women throng in suppliance.

[Exeunt Pylades and Orestes; enter the Chorus
bearing vessels for libation; E Lech a follows
them; they pace slowly towards the tomb of
Agamemnon.

CHORUS

Forth from the royal halls by high command

I bear libations for the dead.
Rings on my smitten breast my smiting hand,

And all my cheek is rent and red,
Fresh- furrowed by my nails, and all my soul
This many a day doth feed on cries of dole.

And trailing tatters of my vest,
In looped and windowed raggedness forlorn,

Hang rent around my breast,
Even as I, by blows of Fate most stern
Saddened and torn.

Oracular thro' visions, ghastly clear,
Bearing a blast of wrath from realms below,
And stiffening each rising hair with dread,

Came out of dream-land Fear,

And, loud and awful, bade
The shriek ring out at midnight's witching hour,

And brooded, stern with woe,
Above the inner house, the woman's bower

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 83

And seers inspired did read the dream on oath,
Chanting aloud In realms below

The dead are wroth ;
Against their slayers yet their ire doth glow.

Therefore to bear this gift of graceless worth

O Earth, my n irsing mother !
The woman god-accurs'd doth send me forth

Lest one crime bring another.
Ill L *he very word to speak, for none

Can ransom or atone
For blood once shei and darkening the plain.

O hearth of woe and bane,

O state that low doth lie !
Sunless, accursed of men, the shadows brood
Above the home of murdered majesty.

Rumour of might, unquestioned, unsubdued,
Pervading ears and soul of lesser men,
Is silent now and dead.
Y^t rules a viler dread ;
For bliss and power, however won,
As gods, and more than gods, dazzle our mortal ken.

Justice doth mark, with scales that swiftly sway,
Some that are yet in light ;
Others in interspace of day and night,

Till Fate arouse them, stay ;

And some are lapped in night, where all things are
undone. 1

1 I have adopted here Conington's view (as opposed to

Paley's), that there is a definite though wary allusion to

Clytemnestra and ^Egisthus, as yet in light and power ; to

Orestes and Electra, as in the twilight of hope and doubt ; to
Agamemnon, as lying in death's darkness.

84 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

On the life-giving lap of Earth

Blood hath flowed forth ;
And now, the seed of vengeance, clots the plain

Unmelting, uneffaced the stain.
And Atfc tarries long, but at the last

The sinner's heart is cast
Into pervading, waxing pan^ s of pain.

Lo, when man's force doth ope
The virgin doors, there is nor cure nor hop'

For what is lost, even so, I deem,
Though in one channel ran Earth's every stream,
Laving the hand defiled from murder's stain,
It were in vain.

And upon me ah me ! the gods hav^ laid

The woe that wrapped round Troy,
What time they led me down from home and kin

Unto a slave's employ
The doom to bow the head
And wacch our master's will

Work deeds of good and ill
To see the headlong sway of force and sin,
And hold restrained the spirit's bitter hate,
Wailing the monarch's fruitless fate,
Hiding my face within my robe, and fain
Of tears, and chilled with frost of hidden pain.

ELECTRA

Handmaidens, orderers of the palace-halls,
Since at my side ye come, a suppliant train,
Companions of this offering, counsel me
As best befits the time : for I, who pour
Upon the grave these streams funereal,
With what fair word can I invoke my sire ?

THK LIBATION-BEARERS 85

Shall I aver, Behold^ I bear these gifts

From well-loved wife unto her well-loved lord,

When 'tis from her, my mother, that they come ?

I dare not say it : of all words I fail

Wherewith to consecrate unto my sire

These sacrificial honours on his grave.

Or shall I speak this word, as mortals use

Give back, to those who send these coronals,

Fut 1 recompense of ills for acts malign ?

Or shall A pour this draught for Earth to drink,

Sans word or reverence, as my sire was slain,

And homeward pass with unreverted eyes,

Casting the bowl away, as one who flings

The household cleansings to the common road?

Be art and part, O friends, in this my doubt,

Even as ye are in taat one common hate

Whereby we live attended : fear ye not

The wrath of any man, nor hide your word

Within your breast : the day of death and doom

Awaits alike the freeman and the slave.

Speak, then, if aught thou know'st to aid us more.

CHORUS

Thou biddest ; I will speak my soul's thought out,
Revering as a shrine thy father's grave.

ELECTRA
Say then thy say, as thou his tomb reverest

CHORUS
Speak solemn words to them that love, and pour.

ELECTRA
And of his kin whom dare I name as kind ?

86 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

CHORUS
Thyself; and next, whoe'er ^gisthus scorns.

ELECTRA
Then His myself and thou, r ly prayer must name.

CHORUS
Whoe'er they be, 'tis thine to know and name them.

ELECTRA
Is there no other we may claim as ours?

CHORUS
Think of Orestes, though far-off he be.

ELECTRA
Right well in this too hast thou schooled my thought.

CHORUS
Mindfully, next, on those who shed the biood

ELECTRA
Pray on them what ? expound, instruct my doubt.

CHORUS
This ; Upon them some god or mortal come

ELECTRA
As judge or as avenger ? speak thy thought.

CHORUS
Pray in set terms, Who shall the slayer slay.

ELECTRA
Beseemeth it to ask such boon of heaven ?

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 87

CHORUS
How not, to wreak a wrong upon a foe ?

ELECTRA

mighty Hermes, 'varder of the shades
Herald of upper ana of under world,
Proclaim and usher down my prayer's appeal
Unto the gods below, that they with eyes
Watchful jehold these halls, my sire's of old
And unto Earth, the mother of all things,

And foster-nurse, and womb that takes their seed.

Lo, I that pour these draughts for men now dead,
Call on my father, who yet holds in ruth
Me and mLie own Orestes, Father, speak
How shall thy children rule thine halls again ?
Homeless we are and sold; and she who sold
Is she who bore us j and the price she took
Is he Tjho joined with her to work thy death,
dZgisthus, her new lord. Behold me here
Brought down to slaves estate, and far away
Wanders Orestes, banished from the wealth
That once was thine ', the profit of thy care,
Whereon these revel in a shameful joy.
Father, my prayer is said; 'tis thine to hear
Grant that some fair fate bring Orestes home,
And unto me grant these a purer soul
Than is my mother's, a more stainless hand.

These be my prayers for us ; for thee, O sire,

1 cry that one may come to smite thy foes,
And that the slayers may in turn be slain.
Cursed is their prayer, and thus I bar its path,
Praying mine own, a counter-curse on them.

88 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

And thou, send up to us the righteous boon

For which we pray; thine aids be heaven and earth,

And justice guide the right to victory,

[To the Chorus.

Thus have I prayed, and thus I shed these streams,
And follow ye the wont, an'l as with flowers
Crown ye with many a tear and cry the dirge
Your lips ring out above the dead man's grave.

\She pours the libations.

CHORUC

Woe, woe, woe !
Let the teardrop fall, plashing on the ground

Where our lord lies low :
Fall and cleanse away thb cursed libation's stain,

Shed on this grave-mound,
Fenced wherein together, gifts of good or bane
From the dead are found.
Lord of Argos, hearken !
Though around thee darken
Mist of death and hell, arise and hear 1
Hearken and awaken to our cry of woe !
Who with might of spear

Shall our home deliver ?
Who like Ares bend until it quiver,

Bend the northern bow ?
Who with hand upon the hilt himself will thrust with

glaive,
Thrust and slay and save ?

ELECTRA

Lo ! the earth drinks them, to rny sire they pass
Learn ye with me of this thing new and strange.

j LIBATION-BEARERS 89

CHORUS

Speak tliou ; my breast doth palpitate with fear.

.

ELECTRA
I see upon the tomb a curl new shorn.

CHORUS
Shorn T-om what man or what deep-girded maid ?

ELECTRA
1 nat may he guess who will ; the sign is plain.

CHORUS
Let me learn this of thee ; let youth prompt age.

ELECTRA
None is there here but I, to clip such gift.

CHORUS
For they who thus should mourn him hate him sore.

ELECTRA
And lo ! in truth the hair exceeding like

CHORUS
Like to what locks and whose ? instruct me that.

ELECTRA
Like unto those my father's children wear.

CHORUS
Then is this lode Orestes' secret gift?

90 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

ELECTRA
Most like it is unto the curls he wore.

CHORUS
Yet how dared he to come unto his home ?

ELECTRA -
He hath but sent it, dipt to mourn his sire.

CHORUS

It is a sorrow grievous as hi3 death,
That he should live yet never dare return.

ELECTRA

Yea, and my heart o'erflowr with gall of grief,
And I am pierced as with a cleaving dart ;
Like to the first drops after drought, my tears
Fall down at will, a bitter bursting tide.
As on this lock I gaze ; I cannot deem
That any Argive save Orestes' self
Was ever lord thereof; nor, well I wot,
Hath she, the murd'ress, shorn and laid this lock
To mourn him whom she slew my mother she,
Bearing no mother's heart, but to her race
A loathing spirit, loathed itself of heaven !
Yet to affirm, as utterly made sure,
That this adornment cometh of the hand
Of mine Orestes, brother of my soul,
I may not venture, yet hope flatters fair !
Ah well-a-day, that this dumb hair had voice
To glad mine ears, as might a messenger,
Bidding me sway no more 'twixt fear and hope,
Clearly commanding, Cast me hence away y
Clipped was I from some head ttou lovest not;

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 9*

Or, / am kin to thee, and here^ as
I come to weep and deck our father's grave.
Aid me, ye gods 1 for well indeed ye know
How in the gale and counter-gale of doubt,
Like to"TKe^seamah f s bark, wef wliirT ani^stray.
But, if God will our life, how1strong^ftirspnng,
From seed how^small, the new tree of our home !
Lo ye, a second sign these footsteps, look,
Like to my own, a corresponsive print ;
And ix. ok, another footmark, this his own,
And that the foot of one who walked with him.
Mark, how the heei and tendons' print combine,
Measured exact, with mine coincident !
Alas, for doubt and anguish rack my mind.

ORESTES (approaching suddenly}

Pray thou, in gratitude for prayers fulfilled,
Fair fall the rest of what I ask of heaven.

ELECTRA
Wherefore ? what win I from the gods by prayer ?

ORESTES
This, that thine eyes behold thy heart's desire.

ELECTRA
On whom of mortals know'st thou that I call ?

ORESTES
I know thy yearning for Orestes deep.

ELECTRA
Say then, wherein event hath crowned my prayer ?

92 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

ORESTES
I, I am he ; seek not one more akin.

ELECTRA
Some fraud, O stranger, weavest thou for me ?

ORESTES *
Against myself I weave it, if I weave.

ELECTRA
Ah, thou hast mind to mock me in my woe !

ORESTES
'Tis at mine own I mock then, mocking thine.

ELECTRA
Speak I with thee then as Orestes' self?

ORESTES

My very face tliou see'st and know'st me net,
And yet but now, when thou didst see the lock
Shorn for my father's grave, and when thy quest
Was eager on the footprints I had made,
Even I, thy brother, shaped and sized as thou,
Fluttered thy spirit, as at sight of me !
Lay now this ringlet whence 'twas shorn, and judge,
And look upon this robe, thine own hands' work,
The shuttle-prints, the creature wrought thereon
Refrain thyself, nor prudence lose in joy,
For well I wot, our kin are less than kind.

ELECTRA

O thou that art unto our father's home

Love, grief and hope, for thee the tears ran down,

THE; LIBATION-BEARERS 93

For thee, the son, the saviour that should be ;

Trust thou thine arm and win thy father's halls !

O aspect sweet of fourfold love to me,

Whom upon thee the heart's constraint bids call

As on my father, and the claim of love

From me unto my mother turns to thee,

For she is very hate ; to thee too turns

What of my heart went out to her who died

A ruthless death upon the altar-stone ;

And for myself I love thee thee that wast

A brother leal, sole stay of love to me.

Now by thy side be strength and right, and Zeus

Q aviour almighty, stand to aid the twain !

ORESTES

Zeus, Zeus ! look do^ri on our estate and us,
The orphaned brood of him, our eagle-sire,
Whom to his death a fearful serpent brought,
Enwinding him in coils ; and we, bereft
And focdless, sink with famine, all too weak
To bear unto the eyrie, as he bore,
Such quarry as he slew. Lo ! I and she,
Electra, stand before thee, fatherless,
And each alike cast out and homeless made.

ELECTRA

And if thou leave to death the brood of him
Whose altar blazed for thee, whose reverence
Was thine, all thine, whence, in the after years,
Shall any hand like his adorn thy shrine
With sacrifice of flesh ? the eaglets slain,
Thou wouldst not have a messenger to bear
Thine omens, once so clear, to mortal men ;
So, if this kingly stock be withered all,

94 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

None on high festivals will fend thy shrine.

Stoop thou to raise us ! strong the race shall grow,

Though puny now it seem, and fallen low.

CHORUS

children, saviours of your father's home,
Beware ye of your words, lest one should hear
And bear them, for the tongue hath lust to tell,
Unto our masters whom God grant to me

In pitchy reek of fun'ral flame to see !

ORESTEO

Nay, mighty is Apollo's oracle
And shall not fail me, whom it bade to pass
Thro' all this peril ; clear the voice rang out
With many warnings, sternly threatening
To my hot heart the wintry chill of pain,
Unless upon the slayers of my sire

1 pressed for vengeance : this the god's command
That I, in ire for home and wealth despoiled,
Should with a craft like theirs the slayers slay:
Else with my very life I should atone

This deed undone, in many a ghastly wise.

For he proclaimed unto the ears of men

That offerings, poured to angry powers of death,

Exude again, unless their will be done,

As grim disease on those that poured them forth

As leprous ulcers mounting on the flesh

And with fell fangs corroding what of old

Wore natural form ; and on the brow arise

White poisoned hairs, the crown of this disease.

He spake moreover of assailing fiends

Empowered to quit on me my father's blood,

Wreaking their wrath on me, what time in night

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 95

Beneath shut lids the spirit's eye sees clear.

The dart that flies in darkness, sped from hell

By spirits of the murdered dead who call

Unto their kin for vengeance, formless fear,

The night-tide's visitant, and madness* curse

Should drive and rack me ; and my tortured frame

Should be chased forth from man's community

As with the brazen scorpions of the scourge.

For me and such as me no lustral bowl

Should stand, no spilth of wine be poured to God

For me, ,. nd .vrath unseen of my dead sire

Should drive me from the shrine ; no man should dare

To take me to his hearth, nor dwell with me :

Slow, friendless, cursed of all should be mine end,

And pitiless 1 horror wind me for the grave.

This spake the god this dare I disobey ?

Yea, though 1 dared, tl;e deed must yet be done ;

For to that end diverse desires combine,

The god's behest, deep grief for him who died,

And last, the grievous blank of wealth despoiled

All these *veigh on me, urge that Argive men,

Minions of valour, who with soul of fire

Did make of fenced Troy a ruinous heap,

Be not left slaves to two and each a woman !

For he, the man, wears woman's heart ; if not,

Soon shall he know, confronted by a man.

[Orestes, Electra, and the Chorus gather round
the tomb of Agamemnon for the invoca-
tion which follows.

CHORUS

Mighty Fates, on you we call 1
Bid the will of Zeus ordain

1 Pity winds thy corse,
Whilst horror waits on princes. WEBSTER.

96 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

Power to those, to whom again
Justice turns with hand and aid 1
Grievous was the prayer one made
Grievous let the answer fall 1
Where the mighty doom is set,
Justice claims aloud her debt.
Who in blood hath dipped the steel,
Deep in blood her meed shall feel 1
List an immemorial word

Whosoever shall take the sword

Shall perish by the sword.

ORESTES

Father, unblest in death, O father mine !

What breath of word or deed
Can I waft on thee from this far con^nj

Unto thy lowly bed,
Waft upon thee, in midst of darkness lying,

Hope's counter-gleam of fire ?
Yet the loud dirge of praise brings grace undying

Unto each parted sire.

CHORUS

O child, the spirit of the dead,
Altho' upon his flesh have fed

The grim teeth of the flame,
Is quelled not ; after many days
The sting of wrath his soul shall raise,

A vengeance to reclaim !
To the dead rings loud our cry
Plain the living's treachery -
Swelling, shrilling, urged on high,

The vengeful dirge, for parents slain,

Shall strive and shall attain.

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 97

ELECTRA

Hear me too, even me, O father, hear !
Not by one chi'd alone these groans, these tears are
shed

Upon thy sepulchre.
Each, each, where thou art lowly laid,
Stands, a suppliant, homeless made :

Ah, and all is full of ill,
Comfort is there none to say !
Strive and wrestle as we may,

Still stands doom invincible.

CHORUS
Nay, if so he will, the god

Still our tears to joy can turn.
He can bid a triumph-ode

Drowrl the dirge beside this urn ;
He to kingly halls can greet
The child restored, the homeward-guided feet.

ORESTES
Ah my father ! hadst thou lain

Under Ilion's wall,
By some Lycian spearman slain,

Thou hadst left in this thine hall
Honour ; thou hadst wrought for us
Fame and life most glorious.

Over-seas if thou had'st died,
Heavily had stood thy tomb,

Heaped on high ; but, quenched in pride,
Grief were light unto thy home.

CHORUS

Loved and honoured hadst thou lain
By the dead that nobly fell,
H

98 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

In the under- world again,

Where are throned the kings of hell,

Full of sway, adorable
Thou hadst stood at their right hand
Thou that wert, in mortal land,

By Fate's ordinance and law,
King of kings who bear the crown

And the stafY, to which in awe
Mortal men bow down.

ELECTRA

Nay O father, I were fain
Other fate had fallen on thee.
Ill it were if thou hadst lain
One among the common slain,
Fallen by Scamander's side
Those who slew thee : there should be ! l
Then, untouched by slavery,

We had heard as from afar
Deaths of those who should have died
'Mid the chance of war,

CHORUS

child, forbear ! things all too high thou sayest.

Easy, but vain, thy cry !

1 Electra's aspiration, vaguely expressed in the original, is
made more indefinite still by a gap in the text. She seems to
wish passionately that the facts had been exactly reversed ;
that, instead of Agamemnon being slain close to his home and
to her, his enemies, i.e. vEgisthus and Clytemnestra, had been
slain in a far-off land. The idealism, so to speak, of her wish
is immediately reproved by the Chorus. With all deference to
Paley's view, however, I doubt if Electra's feeling is one of
horror at being compelled to witness the coming deaths of
vEgisthus and Clytemnestra. This shrinking is not in her
character ; her wish here is only a passion of feminine sorrow
a cry like that of Daphnis : irdvTa, 5* $i>a\\a

Theoc. Id. i. 133.

THE/ LIBATION-BEARERS 99

A boon above all gold is that thou prayest,

An unreached destiny,
As of the blessed land that far aloof

Beyond the north wind lies ;
Yet doth your double prayer ring loud reproof ;

A double scourge of sighs
Awakes the dead ; th' avengers rise, though late ;

Blood stains the guilty pride
Of the accursed who rule on earth, and Fate

Stands on the children's side.

ELECTRA

That hath sped thro' mine ear, like a shaft from a bow!
Zeus, Zeus ! it is thou who dost send from below
A doom on the desperate doer ere long
On a mother a father shall visit his wrong.

CHORUS

Be it mine to upraise thro' the reek of the pyre
The chant of delight, while the funeral fire
Devoureth the corpse of a man that is slain

And a woman laid low !

For who bids me conceal it ! out-rending control,
Blows ever the stern blast of hate thro' my soul,
And before me a vision of wrath and of bane
Flits and waves to and fro.

ORESTES

Zeus, thou alone to us art parent now.

Smite with a rending blow
Upon their heads, and bid .the, larid.be well :

SetHght^ wne je ^ n ,k^?iJ anc ^ ^ 10U lve ear
**"**^<3^aVth, unto my prayer
Yea, hear O mother Earth, and monarchy of hell !

ioo THE LIBATION-BEARERS

CHORUS

Nay, the law is sternly set

Blood-drops shed upon the ground

Plead for other bloodshed yet ;

Loud the call of death doth sound,

Calling guilt of olden time,

A Fury, crowning crime with crime.

ELECTRA

Where, where are ye, avenging powers,

Puissant Furies of the slain ?
Behold the relics of the race
Of Atreus, thrust from pride of place !
O Zeus, what home henceforth i: ours,
What refuge to attain ?

CHORUS

Lo, at your Wail my heart throbs, wildly stirred ;

Now am I lorn with sadness,

Darkened in all my soul, to hear your sorrow's word.
Anon to hope, the seat of strength, I rise,
She, thrusting grief away, lifts up mine eyes
To the new dawn of gladness.

ORESTES

Skills it to tell of aught save wrong on wrong,

Wrought by our mother's deed ?
Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong

Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed :
Her children's soul is wolfish, born from hers,

And softens not by prayers

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 101

CHORUS

I dealt upon my breast the blow
That \sian mourning women know ;
Wails from my breast the fun'ral cry,
The Cissian weeping melody ;
Stretched rendingly forth, to tatter and tear,
My clenched hands wander, here and there,
From head to breast ; distraught with blows
Throb dizzily my brows.

ELECTRA

Aweless in hate, O mother, sternly brave !

As in a foeman's grave
Thou laid'st in earth a king, but to the bier

No citizen drew near,
Thy husband, thine, yet for his obsequies,

Thou bad'st no wail arise !

ORESTES

Alas, *ne shameful l burial thou dost speak !
Yet I the vengeance of his shame will wreak

That do the gods command !

That shall achieve mine hand !
Grant me to thrust her life away, and I
Will dare to die !

CHORUS

List thou the deed ! Hewn down and foully torn,

He to the tomb was borne ;
Yea, by her hand, the deed who wrought,
With like dishonour to the grave was brought,
And by her hand she strove, with strong desire,

1 Reading ra<f>d.v artfjiw for rb irw dr//iws a correction
due to Dr. Verrall.

102 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

Thy life to crush, O child, by muraer of thy sire :
Bethink thee, hearing, of the shame, the pain
Wherewith that sire was slain !

ELECTRA

Yea, such was the doom of my sire ; well-a-aay,

I was thrust from his side,
As a dog from the chamber they thrust me away,
And in place of my laughter rose sobbing and tears,

As in darkness I lay.
O father, if this word can pass to thine ears,

To thy soul let it reach and abide !

CHORUS

Let it pass, let it pierce, through the sense of thine ear,

To thy soul, where in silence it wai f c *;h the hour !
The past is accomplished ; but rouse thee to hear
What the future prepareth ; awake and appear,
Our champion, in wrath and in power !

ORESTES
O father, to thy loved ones come in aid.

ELECTRA
With tears I call on thee.

CHORUS

Listen and rise to light !
Be thou with us, be thou against the foe !
Swiftly this cry arises even so

Pray we, the loyal band, as we have prayed 1

ORESTES

Let their might meet with mine, and their right with
my right.

TH LIBATION-BEARERS 103

ELECTRA
O ye Gods, it is yours to decree.

CHORUS

Ye call unto the dead ; I quake to hear.

Fate is ordained of old, and shall fulfil your prayer.

ELECTRA

Alas, the inborn curse thauhaunts our home,

Of Ate's bloodstained scourge the tuneless sound 1
Alas, the deep insufferable doom,
The stanchless wound !

ORESTES

It shall be stanched, the task is ours,
Not by a stranger's, but by kindred hand,

Shall be chased forth the blood-fiend of our land.
Be this our spoken spell, to call Earth's nether
powers !

CHORUS

Lords of a dark eternity,
To you has come the children's cry,
Send up from hell, fulfil your aid
To them who prayed.

ORESTES

O father, murdered in unkingly wise,

Fulfil my prayer, grant me thine halls to sway,

ELECTRA

To me, too, grant this boon dark death to deal
Unto ^Egisthus, and to 'scape my doom.

104 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

ORESTES

So shall the rightful feasts that mortals pay
Be set for thee ; else, not for thee shall rise
The scented reek of altars fed with flesh,
But thou shalt lie dishonoured : hear thou me *

ELECTRA

I too, from my full heritage restored,
Will pour the lustral streams, what time I pass
Forth as a bride from these paternal JtiaLs,
And honour first, beyond all graves, thy tomb.

ORESTES
Earth, send my sire to fend me in the fight 1

ELECTRA
Give fair-faced fortune, O Persephone !

ORESTES
Bethink thee, father, in the laver slain

ELECTRA
Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee !

ORESTES
Bonds not of brass ensnared thee, father mine.

ELECTRA
Yea, the ill craft of an enfolding robe.

ORESTES
By this our bitter speech arise, O sire !

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 105

ELECTRA
Raise thou thine head at love's last, dearest call !

ORESTES

Yea, speed forth Right to aid thy kinsmen's cause ;
Grip for grip, let them grasp the foe, if thou
Wiliest in triumph to forget thy fall.

ELECTRA

Hear me, O father, once again hear me.

Lo ! at thy tomb, two fledglings of thy brood

A man-child and a maid ; hold them in ruth,

Nor wipe them out, the last of Pelops' line.

For while they live, thou livest from the dead ;

(Children ar* memory's ^voices^ and preserve

The^3eM7f6fri wholly dying : as a net

Is ever by the buoyant corks upheld,

Which save the flax-mesh, in the depth submerged.

Listen, this wail of ours doth rise for thee,

And as thou heedest it thyself art saved.

CHORUS

In sooth, a blameless prayer ye spake at length
The tomb's requital for its dirge denied :
Now, for the rest, as thou art fixed to do,
Take fortune by the hand and work thy will.

ORESTES

The doom is set ; and yet I fain would ask
Not swerving from the course of my resolve,
Wherefore she sent these offerings, and why
She softens all too late her cureless deed ?
An idle boon it was, to send them here
Unto the dead who recks not of such gifts.

io6 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

I cannot guess her thought, but well I ween
Such gifts are skilless to atone such crime.
Be blood once spilled, an idle strife he strives
Who seeks with other wealth or wine outpoured
To atone the deed. So stands the word, nor fails.
Yet would I know her thought ; speak, if thou knowest.

CHORUS

I know it, son ; for at her side I stood.

'Twas the night- wandering terror of a dream

That flung her shivering from her couch, and bade

her
Her, the accursed of God these offerings send.

ORESTES
Heard ye the dream, to tell it forth aright?

CHORUS
Yea, from herself; her womb a serpent bare.

ORESTES
What then the sum and issue of the tale ?

CHORUS
Even as a swaddled child, she lulPd the thing.

ORESTES
What suckling craved the creature, born full-fang ed ?

CHORUS
Yet in her dreams she proffered it the breast.

ORESTES
How ? did the hateful thing not bite her teat ?

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 107

CHORUS
Yea, and sucked forth a blood-gout in the milk.

ORESTES
Not vain this dream it bodes a man's revenge.

CHORUS

Then out of sleep she started with a cry,
And thrV t 1 .e palace for their mistress' aid
Full many lamps, that erst lay blind with night,
Flared into light ; then, even as mourners use,
Sne sends these offerings, in hope to win
A cure to cleave and sunder sin from doom.

ORESTES

Earth and my father's grave, to you I call-
Give this her dream fulfilment, and thro' me.
I read it in each part coincident
With what shall be ; for mark, that serpent sprang
From the same womb as I, in swaddling bands
By the same hands was swathed, lipped the same

breast,

And sucking forth the same sweet mother's-milk
Infused a clot of blood ; and in alarm
She cried upon her wound the cry of pain.
The rede is clear : the thing of dread she nursed,
The death of blood she dies ; and I, 'tis I,
In semblance of a serpent, that must slay her.
Thou art my seer, and thus I read the dream.

CHORUS

So do ; yet ere thou doest, speak to us,
Bidding some act, some, by not acting, aid.

io8 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

ORESTES

Brief my command : I bid my sister pass

In silence to the house, and all I bid

This my design with wariness conceal,

That they who did by craft a chieftain slay

May by like craft and in like noose be ta'en,

Dying the death which Loxias foretold

Apollo, king and prophet undisproved.

I with this warrior Pylades will come

In likeness of a stranger, full equipt

As travellers come, and at the pplace gates

Will stand, as stranger yet in friendship's bond

Unto this house allied ; and each of us

Will speak the tongue that round Parnassus sounds,

Feigning such speech as Phocian voices ne.

And what if none of those that tend the gates

Shall welcome us with gladness, since the house

With ills divine is haunted ? if this hap,

We at the gate will bide, till, passing by,

Some townsman cnake conjecture and proclaim,

How f is ^Egisthus here^ and knowingly

Keeps suppliants aloof ^ by bolt and bar ?

Then shall I win my way ; and if I cross

The threshold of the gate, the palace' guard,

And find him throned where once my father sat

Or if he come anon, and face to face

Confronting, drop his eyes from mine I swear

He shall not utter, Who art thou and whence ?

Ere my steel leap, and compassed round with death

Low he shall lie : and thus, full-fed with doom,

The Fury of the house shall drain once more

A deep third draught of rich unmingled blood.

But thou, O sister, look that all within

Be well prepared to give these things event.

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 109

And ye I say 'twere well to bear a tongue
Full of fair silence and of fitting speech
As each beseems the time ; and last, do thou,
Hermes the Carder- god, keep watch and ward,
And guide to victory my striving sword.

[Exit with Pylades.

CHORUS

Many and marvellous the things of fear

Earth's breast <^oth bear ;
And t.lie sea's lap with many monsters teems,
And windy levin-bolts and meteor gleams

Breed many deadly things-
Unknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings,

And in their tread is death ;
And rushing whirlwinds, of whose blasting breath

Man's tongue can tell.
But who can tell aright the fiercer thing,
The aweless soul, within man's breast inhabiting ?
Who tell, how, passion-fraught and love-distraught,
The woman's eager, craving thought
Doth wed mankind to woe and ruin fell ?
Yea, how the loveless love that doth possess
The woman, even as the lioness,
Doth rend and wrest apart, with eager strife,

The link of wedded life ?

Let him be the witness, whose thought is not borne

on light wings thro' the air,
But abideth with knowledge, what thing was wrought

by Althea's T despair ;

1 This legend (accessible now, to all lovers of poetry, in
Mr, Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon) is briefly as follows :
Althea, at the birth of her son Meleager, had a vision of the
Fates, who told her that her son should live till the brand then

no THE LIBATION-BEARERS

For she marr'd the life-grace of her son, with ill counsel

rekindled the flame
That was quenched as it glowed on the brand, what

time from his mother he came,
With the cry of a new-born child ; and the brand from

the burning she won,
For the Fates had foretold it coeval, in life and in

death, with her son.

Yea, and man's hate tells of another, even Scylla l of
murderous guile,

Who slew for an enemy's sake her father, won o'er by
the wile

And the gifts of Cretan Minos, the gauds of the high-
wrought gold ;

For she clipped from her father's head the lock that
should never wax old,

As he breathed in the silence of sleep, and knew not
her craft and her crime

But Hermes, the guard of the dead, doth grasp her,
in fulness of time.

And since of the crimes of the cruel I tell, let my

singing record
The bitter wedlock and loveless, the curse on these

halls outpoured,

on the hearth was consumed. Therefore she extinguished the
brand and guarded it, till being wroth with Meleager for having
slain her brothers, Toxeus and Plexippus, she cast the brand
into the flame, and as it wasted so did Meleager perish and
pass away.

1 Scylla, daughter of Nisus, king of Megara, betrayed her
father and his kingdom to Minos, king of Crete : for she loved
Minos, and being persuaded by him, did cut off from her
father's head, as he lay asleep, a lock of purple hair ; which
lock so long as he kept unshorn, it was fated that neither he
nor his kingdom should fall.

LIBATION BEARERS in

The crafty device of a woman, whereby did a chieftain
fall,

A warrior stern in his wrath, the fear of his enemies
all,

A song of dishonour, untimely ! and cold is the hearth
that was warm,

And ruled by the cowardly spear, the woman's un-
womanly arm.

But the summit and crowrhof all crimes is that which

* in Lemnos befell ; l
A woe and a mourning it is, a shame and a spitting

to tell ;
And he that in after time doth speak of his deadliest

thought,
Doth say, J* is like to the deed that of old time in

Lemnos was wrought y
And loathed of men were the doers, and perished, they

and their seed,
For the gods brought hate upon them ; none loveth

the impious deed.

It is well of these tales to tell ; for the sword in the

grasp of Right
With a cleaving, a piercing blow to the innermost heart

doth smite,
And the deed unlawfully done is not trodden down

nor forgot,
When the sinner out-steppeth the law and heedeth the

high God not ;
But Justice hath planted the anvil, and Destiny forgeth

the sword

1 A double tragedy of domestic massacre, which took place
i; Lemnos, gave rise to a proverbial use of the adjective
"Lemnian" for "atrocious."

112 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

That shall smite in her chosen time ; by her is the

child restored ;

And, darkly devising, the Fiend of the house, world-
cursed, will repay

The price of the blood of the slain, that was shed in
the bygone day.

[Enter Orestes and Pylades^
in guise of travellers.

ORESTES (knocking at the palace gate)
What ho ! slave, ho ! I smite the palace ga*e
In vain, it seems ; what ho, attend within,
Once more, attend ; come forth and ope the halls,
If yet ^Egisthus holds them hospitable.

SLAVE (from within)

Anon, anon ! \0^ns the door.

Speak, from what land art thou, and sent from whom ?

ORESTES

Go, tell to them who rule the palace-halls,
Since 'tis to them I come with tidings new
(Delay not Night's dark car is speeding on,
And time is now for wayfarers to cast
Anchor in haven, wheresoever a house
Doth welcome strangers) that there now come forth
Some one who holds authority within
The queen, or, if some man, more seemly were it ;
For when man standeth face to face with man,
No stammering modesty confounds their speech,
But each to each doth tell his meaning clear.

[Enter Clytemnestra.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Speak on, O strangers : have ye need of aught ?
Here is whate'er beseems a house like this

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 113

Warm bath and bed, tired Nature's soft restorer,
And courteous eyes to greet you ; and if aught
Of graver import needeth act as well,
That, as man's charge, I to a man will tell.

ORESTES

A Daulian man am I, from Phocis bound,
And as with mine own travel-scrip self-laden
I went toward Argos, parting hitherward
With travelling foot, there did encounter me
One wLj>m I knew not and who knew not me,
But asked my purposed way nor hid his own,
^nd, as we talked together, told his name
Strophius of Phocis ; then he said, " Good sir,
Since in all case thou art to Argos bound,
Forget no* this my message, heed it well,
Tell to his own, Orestes is no more.
And whatsoe'er his kinsfolk shall resolve,
Whether to bear his dust unto his home,
Or lay him here, in death as erst in life
Exiled tor aye, a child of banishment
Bring me their hest, upon thy backward road ;
For now in brazen compass of an urn
His ashes lie, their dues of weeping paid."
So much I heard, and so much tell to thee,
Not knowing if I speak unto his kin
Who rule his home ; but well, I deem, it were,
Such news should earliest reach a parent's ear.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Ah woe is me ! thy word our ruin tells ;
From roof-tree unto base are we despoiled.
O thou whom nevermore we wrestle down,
Thou Fury of this home, how oft and oft
Thou dost descry what far aloof is laid,

i

H4 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

Yea, from afar dost bend th' unerring bow
And rendest from my wretchedness its friends ;
As now Orestes who, a brief while since,
Safe from the mire of death stood warily,
Was the home's hope to cure th' exulting wrong ;
Now thou ordainest, Let the ill abide.

ORESTES

To host and hostess thus with fortune blest,
Lief had I come with better news to bear
Unto your greeting and acquaintanceship ;
For what goodwill lies deeper than the bond
Of guest and host ? and wrong abhorred it we^e,
As well I deem, if I, who pledged my faith
To one, and greetings from the other had,
Bore not aright the tidings 'twixt the iwain.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Whatever thy news, thou shalt not welcome lack,
Meet and deserved, nor scant our grace shall be.
Hadst thou thyself not come, such tale to tell,
Another, sure, had borne it to our ears.
But lo ! the hour is here when travelling guests,
Fresh from the daylong labour of the road,
Should win their rightful due. Take him within

[ To the slave.

To the man-chamber's hospitable rest
Him and these fellow-farers at his side ;
Give them such guest-right as bese^^s mr halls ;
I bid thee do as thou shalt answer for it
And I unto the prince who rules our home
Will tell the tale, and, since we lack not friends,
With them will counsel how this hap to bear.

[Exit Clytemnestra.

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 115

CHORUS

So be it done

Sister-servants, when draws nigh
Time for us aloud to cry
Vrestes and his victory ?

O holy earth and holy tomb
Over the grave-pit heaped on high,
Where lowdoth Agamemnon lie,

Th king of ships, the army's lord !
Now is the hour-^-give ear and come,
For now doth Craft her aid afford,
And Hermes, guard of shades in hell,
Stands o'er their strife, to sentinel

The dooming of the sword.
I wot the stranger workcth woe within
For lo ! I see come forth, suffused with tears,
Orestes' nurse. What ho, Kilissa thou
Beyond the doors ? Where goest thou ? Methinks
Some grief unbidden walketh at thy side.

\Enter Kilissa, a nurse.

KILISSA

My mistress bids me, with what speed I may,
Call in ^gisthus to the stranger guests,
That he may come, and standing face to face,
A man with men, may thus more clearly learn
This rumour new. Thus speaking, to her slaves
She hid beneath the glance of fictive grief
Laughter for what is wrought to her desire
Too well ; but ill, ill, ill besets the house,
Brought by the tale these guests have told so clear.
And he, God wot, will gladden all his heart
Hearing this rumour. Woe and well-a-day !

n6 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

The bitter mingled cup of ancient woes,
Hard to be borne, that here in Atreus' house
Befel, was grievous to mine inmost heart,
But never yet did I endure such pain.
All else I bore with set soul patiently ;
But now alack, alack ! Orestes dear,
The day and night-long travail of my soul !
Whom from his mother's womb, a new-born child,
I clasped and cherished ! Many a time and oft
Toilsome and profitless my service was,
When his shrill outcry called me from my jouch !
For the young child, before tho sense is born,
Hath but a dumb thing's life, must needs be nur?xl
As its own nature bids. The swaddled thing
Hath nought of speech, whate'er discomfort come
Hunger or thirst or lower weakling nee^ ;
For the babe's stomach works its own relief.
Which knowing well before, yet oft surprised,
'Twas mine to cleanse the swaddling clothes poor I
Was nurse to tend and fuller to make white :
Two works in one, two handicrafts I took,
When in mine arms the father laid the boy.
And now he's dead alack and well-a-day !
Yet must I go to him whose wrongful power
Pollutes this house fair tidings these to him !

CHORUS
Say then, with what array she bids him come ?

KlLISSA

What say'st thou 1 Speak more clearly for mine ear.

CHORUS
Bids she bring henchmen, or to come alone ?

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 117

KlLISSA

She bids him bring a spear-armed body-guard.

CHORUS

Nay, tell not that unto our loathed lord,
But speed to him, put on the mien of joy,
Say, Come along, fear nought^ the news is good :
A bearer can tell straight a twisted tale. 1

KlLISSA

Does then thy mind in this new tale find joy ?

CHORUS
What if Zeus bid our ill wind veer to fair ?

KlLISSA

And how ? the home's hope with Orestes dies.

CHORUS
Not yet a seer, though feeble, this might see.

KlLISSA

What say'st thou ? Know'st thou aught, this tale
belying ?

CHORUS

Go, tell the news to him, perform thine hest,
What the gods will, themselves can well provide.

1 Reading /CUTTT^S for /c/>i/7rr6s. The line contains a proverb
not otherwise known. Its application here is ambiguous ; I
have taken it to mean, " I, the Chorus, have twisted, perverted,
the order which was given to you, the nurse ; do you, as
messenger, deliver it as straight t i.e. unhesitatingly, as if it
were in its original form."

u8 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

KlLISSA

Well, I will go, herein obeying thee ;

And luck fall fair, with favour sent from heaven.

\Exit.

CHORUS

Zeus, sire of them who on Olympus dwell,
Hear thou, O hear my prayer !

Grant to my righttiil lords to prosper well
Even as their zeal is fair !

For right, for right goes up aloud my cry
Zeus, aid him, stand anigh !

Into his father's hall he goes

To smite his father's foes.

Bid him prevail ! by thee on throne of triumph set,
Twice, yea and thrice with joy shall he acquit the debt.

Bethink theo, the young steed, the orphan foal
Of sire beloved by thee, unto the car

Of doom is harnessed fast.
Guide him aright, plant firm a lasting goal,

Speed thou his pace, O that no chance may mar
The homeward course, the last !

And ye who dwell within the inner chamber

Where shines the stored joy of gold
Gods of one heart, O hear ye, and remember ;
Up and avenge the blood shed forth of old,

With sudden rightful blow ;
Then let the old curse die, nor be renewed

With progeny of blood,
Once more, and not again, be latter guilt laid low !

THE llBATION-BEARERS 119

O thou who dwell'st in Delphi's mighty cave,
Grant us to see this home once more restored

Unto its rightful lord !
Let it look fotfh, from veils of death, with joyous eye

Unto the dawning light of liberty ;
And Hermes, Maia's child, lend hand to save,

Willing the right, and guide
Our state with Fortune's breeze adown the favouring

tide.
Whatever in darkness hidden lies,

He utters at his will ;

He at his will throws darkness on our eyes,
By night and eke by day inscrutable.

Then, then shall wealth atone
The ills that here were done.
Then, tnen will we unbind,
Fling free on wafting wind
Of joy, the woman's voice that wailetb now
In piercing accents for a chief laid low ;

And this our song shell be
Hail to the commonwealth restored !

Hail to the freedom won to me !
All hail ! for doom hath passed from him, my well-
loved lord!

And thou, O child, when Time and Chance agree,
Up to the deed that for thy sire is done 1
And if she wail unto thee, Spare, O son
Cry, Aid, O father and achieve the deed,
The horror of man's tongue, the gods' great need !
Hold in thy breast such heart as Perseus had,

The bitter woe work forth,
Appease the summons of the dead,
The wrath of friends on earth ;

120 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

Yea, set within a sign of blood and doom,
And do to utter death him that pollutes thy home.

Hither and not unsummoned have I come ;
For a new rumour, borne by stranger men
Arriving hither, hath attained mine ears,
Of hap unwished-for, even Orestes' death.
This were new sorrow, a Hood-bolterM load
Laid on the house that doth already bo\,
Beneath a former wound that festers deep.
Dare I opine these words have truth and life ?
Or are they tales, of woman's terror born,
That fly in the void air, and die disproved ?
Canst thou tell aught, and prove it to mv soul ?

CHORUS

What we have heard, we heard ; go thou within
Thyself to ask the strangers of their tale.
Strengthless are tidings, thro' another heard ;
Question is his, to whom the tale is brought.

/EGISTHUS

I too will meet and test the messenger,
Whether himself stood witness of the death,
Or tells it merely from dim rumour learnt :
None shall cheat me, whose soul hath watchful eyes.

{Exit.
CHORUS

Zeus, Zeus ! what word to me is given ?
What cry or prayer, invoking heaven,

Shall first by me be uttered ?
What speech of craft nor all revealing,
Nor all too warily concealing

THE JLlBATION-BEARERS 121

Ending my speech, shall aid the deed ?
For lo ! in readiness is laid
The dark emprise, the rending blade ;

Blood-dropping daggers shall achieve
The dateless doom of Atreus' name,
Or kindling torch and joyful flame
In sign of new-won liberty

Once more Orestes shall retrieve
His father's wealth, and, throned on high,
Shall hold the city'o fealty.
Sc mighty is the grasp whereby,
Heaven-holpen, he shall trip and throw,
Unseconded, a double foe.
Ho for the victory !

\A loud cry within.

VOICE OF ^EGISTHUS
Help, help, alas !

CHORUS

Ho theix, ho ! how is't within ?
Is't done ? is't over ? Stand we here aloof
While it is wrought, that guiltless we may seem
Of this dark deed ; with death is strife fulfilled.

[Enter a slave.

SLAVE

O woe, O woe, my lord is done to death !
Woe, woe, and woe again, ^Egisthus gone 1
Hasten, fling wide the doors, unloose the bolts
Of the queen's chamber. O for some young strength
To match the need ! but aid availeth nought
To him laid low for ever. Help, help, help !
Sure to deaf ears I shout, and call in vain
To slumber ineffectual. What ho !

122 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

The queen ! how fareth Clytemnestra's self?
Her neck too, hers, is close upon the steel,
And soon shall sink, hewn thro' as justice wills.

[Enter Clytemncstra.

CLYTEMNESTRA
What ails thee, raising this ado for us ?

SLAVE
I say the dead are come to slay the livii g.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Alack, I read thy riddles all too clear
We slew by craft and by like craft shall die.
Swift, bring the axe that slew my lord of old ;
Pll know anon or death or victory
So stands the curse, so I confront it here.

\Enter Orestes, his sword dropping with blood.

ORESTES
Thee too I seek : for him what's done will ^erve.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Woe, woe ! ^gisthus, spouse and champion, slain !

ORESTES

What, lov'st the man ? then in his grave lie down,
Be his in death, desert him nevermore !

CLYTEMNESTRA

Stay, child, and fear to strike. O son, this breast
Pillowed thine head full oft, while, drowsed with sleep,
Thy toothless mouth drew mother's milk from me.

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 123

ORESTES
Can I my mother'spare ? speak, Pylades.

PYLADES

Where then would fall the hest Apollo gave
At Delphi, where the solemn compact sworn ?
Choose thou the hate of all men, not of gods.

ORESTES

Thou dosi prevail ; I hold thy counsel good.

[To Clytemnestra.

Follow ; I will to slay thee at his side.
With him whom in his life thou lovedst more
Than Agamemnon, sleep in death, the meed
For hate wl.ere love, and love where hate was due !

CLYTEMNESTRA
I nursed thee young ; must I forego mine eld ?

ORESTES
Thou slew'st my father ; shalt thou dwell with me ?

CLYTEMNESTRA
Fate bore a share in these things, O my child !

ORESTES
Fate also doth provide this doom for thee.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Beware, O child, a parent's dying curse.

ORESTES
A parent who did cast me out to ill I

124 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

CLYTEMNESTRA
Not cast thee out, but to a friendly home.

ORESTES
Born free, I was by twofold bargain sold.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Where then the price that I received for thee ?

ORESTES
The price of shame ; I taunt thee not more plainly.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Nay, but recount thy father's lewdness too.

ORESTES
Home-keeping, chide not him who toils without.

CLYTEMNESTRA
; Tis hard for wives to live as widows, child.

ORESTES
The absent husband toils for them at home.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Thou growest fain to slay thy mother, child.

ORESTES
Nay, 'tis thyself wilt slay thyself, not I.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Beware thy mother's vengeful hounds from hell.

ORESTES
How shall I 'scape my father's, sparing thee ?

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 125

CLYTEMNESTRA
Living, I cry as to a tomb, unheard.

ORESTES
My father's fate ordains this doom for thee.

CLYTEMNESTRA
Ah me ! this snake it was I bore and nursed.

ORESTES

Ay, right prophetic was thy visioned fear.

Shi meful thy deed was die the death of shame !

\Exit) driving Clytemnestra before him.

CHORUS

Lo, even for these I mourn, a double death :
Yet since Orestes, driven on by doom,
Thus crowns the height of murders manifold,
I say, 'tis well that not in night and death
Should e ; nk the eye and light of this our home.

There came on Priam's race and name
A vengeance ; though it tarried long,

With heavy doom it came.
Came, too, on Agamemnon's hall

A lion-pair, twin swordsmen strong.
And last, the heritage doth fall

To him, to whom from Pythian cave
The god his deepest counsel gave.
Cry out, rejoice ! our kingly hall

Hath 'scaped from ruin ne'er again
Its ancient wealth be wasted all

By two usurpers, sin-defiled
An evil path of woe and bane !

126 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

On him who dealt the dastard blow

Comes Craft, Revenge's scheming* child.
And hand in hand with him doth go,

Eager for fight,

The child of Zeus, whom men below
Call Justice, naming her aright.
And on her foes her breath
Is as the blast of death ;
For her the god who dwells in deep recess

Beneath Parnassas' brow,
Summons with loud acclaim
To rise, though late and lame,
And come with craft that worketh righteousness.

For even o'er Powers divine this law is strong

Thou shalt not serve the wrong*
To that wfiicli ruleth heaven beseeitts it that we bow
Lo, freedom's light hath come !

Lo, now is rent away

The grim and curbing bit that held us dumb.
Up to the liglit, ye halls ! this many a day

Too low on earth ye lay.
And Time, the great Accomplisher,
Shall cross the threshold, whensoe'er
He choose with purging hand to cleanse
The palace, driving all pollution thence.
And fair the cast of Fortune's die
Before our state's new lords shall lie,
Not as of old, but bringing fairer doom.
Lo, freedom's light hath come !

\The scene opens, disclosing Orestes stand-
ing over the corpses of dEgisthus and
Clytemnestra ; in one hand he holds his
sword) in the other the robe in which
Agamemnon was entangled and slain.

THE ORATION-BEARERS 127

ORESTES

There lies our couiitry's twofold tyranny,
My father's slayers, spoilers of my home.
Erst were they royal, sitting on the throne,
And loving are they yet, their common fate
Tells the tale truly, shows their troth plight firm.
They swore to work mine ill-starred father's death,
They swore to die together ; 'tis fulfilled.

O ye who stand, this groat doom's witnesses,
Behold th : s too, the dark device which bound
My sire unhappy to h;s death, behold
The mesh which trapped his hands, enwound his feet !
Stand round, unfold it 'tis the trammel-net
That wrapped a chieftain ; hold it that he see,
The father -not my sire, but he whose eye
Is judge of all things, the all-seeing Sun !
Let him behold my mother's damn&d deed,
Then let him stand, when need shall be to me,
Witness that justly I have sought and slain
My mother ; blameless was ^Egisthus? doom
he died the death law bids adulterers die.
But she who plotted this accursed thing
To slay her lord, by whom she bare beneath
Her girdle once the burden of her babes,
Beloved ere while, now turned to hateful foes
What deem ye of her ? or what venomed thing,
Sea-snake or adder, had more power than she
To poison with a touch the flesh unscarred ?
So great her daring, such her impious will.
How name her, if I may not speak a curse ?
A lion-springe ! a laver's swathing cloth,
Wrapping a dead man, twining round his feet
A net, a trammel, an entangling robe?
Such were the weapon of some strangling thief,

128 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

The terror of the road, a cut-purse hound
With such device full many might he kill,
Full oft exult in heat of villainy.
Ne'er have my house so cursed an indweller
Heaven send me, rather, childless to be slain ?

CHORUS

Woe for each desperate deed !

Woe for the queen, with shame of life bereft !

And ah, for him who still is left,
Madness, dark blossom of a bloody seed !

ORESTES

Did she the deed or not ? this robe gives proof,
Imbrued with blood that bathed yEgisthus' sword :
Look, how the spurted stain combines w^h time
To blur the many dyes that once adorned
Its pattern manifold ! I now stand here,
Made glad, made sad with blood, exulting, wailing-
Hear, O thou woven web that slew my sire !
I grieve for deed and death and all my home
Victor, pollution's damned stain for prize.

CHORUS

Alas, that none of mortal men
Can pass his life untouched by pain !
Behold, one woe is here
Another loometh near.

ORESTES

Hark ye and learn for what the end shall be
For me I know not : breaking from the curb
My spirit whirls me off, a conquered prey,
Borne as a charioteer by steeds distraught
Far from the course, and madness in my breast

THE LIBATION-BEARERS 129

Burneth to chant its song, and leap, and rave

Hark ye and learn, friends, ere my reason goes !

I say that rightfully I slew my mother,

A thing God-scorned, that foully slew my sire.

And chiefest wizard of the spell that bound me

Unto this deed I name the Pythian seer

Apollo, who foretold that if I slew,

The guilt of murder done should pass from me ;

But if I spared, the fate that should be mine

I dare not blazon forth the bow of speech

Can reach ^ot to the mark, that doom to tell.

And now behold me, how with branch and crown

I pa~s, a suppliant made meet to go

Unto Earth's midmost shrine, the holy ground

Of Loxias, and that renowned light

Of ever-burning fire, to 'scape the doom

Of kindred murder : to no other shrine

(So Loxias bade) may I for refuge turn.

Bear witness, Argives, in the after time,

How came on me this dread fatality.

Living, I pass a banished wanderer hence,

To leave in death the memory of this cry.

CHORUS

Nay, but the deed is well ; link not thy lips
To speech ill-starred, nor vent ill-boding words
Who hast to Argos her full freedom given,
Lopping two serpents' heads with timely blow.

ORESTES

Look, look, alas !

Handmaidens, see what Gorgon shapes throng up !
Dusky their robes and all their hair enwound
Snakes coiled with snakes off, off, I must away !

K

130 THE LIBATION-BE.iRERS

CHORUS

Most loyal of all sons unto thy sire,

What visions thus distract thee ? Hold, abide ;

Great was thy victory, and shalt thou fear ?

ORESTES

These are no dreams, void shapes of haunting ill,
But clear to sight my mother's hell-hounds come !

CHORUS

Nay, the fresh bloodshed still imbrues thine hands,
And thence distraction sinks into thy soul.

ORESTES

O king Apollo see, they swarm and throng
Black blood of hatred dripping from their eyes !

CHORUS

One remedy thou hast ; go, touch the si rine
Of Loxias, and rid thee of these woes.

ORESTES

Ye can behold them not, but I behold them.
Up and away ! I dare abide no more.

\Exit.

CHORUS

Farewell then as thou mayst, the god thy friend
Guard thee and aid with chances favouring.'

Behold, the storm of woe divine
That raves and beats on Atreus' line

Its great third blast hath blown.
First was Thyestes' loathly woe

TH'E ^IBATION-BEARERS 131

The rueful feast of long ago,

On children's flesh, unknown.
And next the kingly chief's despite,
When he who led the Greeks to fight

Was in the bath hewn down.
And now the offspring of the race
Stands in the third, the saviour's place,

To save or to consume ?
O whither, ere it be fulfilled, t
Ere its fierce blast be* hushed and stilled,

Sh^ll blow the wind of doom ?

[Exeunt.

APPENDIX

THOSE unacquainted with the original of this play may yet
possibly detect in the translation, here and there, something
of an alien element alien, I mean, in a special degree, to
the spirit of Greek tragedy. I may briefly explain to such
readers the origin of this deficiency.

The play is " confessedly thj most difficult of the
tragedies that have come down to us from Grecian antiquity "
(Con. Choeph. Pref. p. i.), and the difficulties are not, as
elsewhere in ^Eschylus, mainly owing to a certain abrupt-
ness of style and profundity of thought. These qualities are
abundantly present in this play, but its difficulty is immense'y
increased by the condition of the text, which is mutilated in
several places, and corrupt, beyond hope of certain restora-
tion, in many others.

The worst case of all is that of the chorus, 11. 784-837,
where Conington suspects that the text of the MSS. has
been " extensively tampered with, so as entirely to obliterate
the original reading." But the same kind of obscurity
besets the translator in many other passages. Let the
reader imagine a person, well acquainted with French,
dictating a play in that language to a scribe only partially
acquainted with it able, that is, to spell any word that he
recognises, but unable to follow intelligently the thought of
whole passages, unless they are abundantly clear and vrry
deliberately dictated ; let him imagine such a scribe losing

APPENDIX 133

the cue given by ihe metre or the "strophe," and copying
words or syllables imperfectly heard ; then let him imagine
the result, as a piece of French literature, and he will have,
mutatis mutandis, a fairly accurate idea of the condition, in
several places, of the text of The Libation- Bearers.

I would guard myself from giving an opinion that such is
the origin of these famous corruptions. A knowledge of the
conditions under which MSS. were transcribed, if accessible
at all, is not so to me at this time. (I would, however,
remark that Conington App. II. p. 166 to some extent
endorses a friend's suggestion that dictation is the source of
many corruptions in the Greek dramatists.) But my
present purpose is rather to explain the way in which this
translation endeavours to deal with the textual problem.

In the first place, wherever, as in the opening speech,
gaps of uncertain extent, of whole lines or paragraphs, are
found or stnugly suspected, no attempt has been made to
supply them. Except as an exercise of private ingenuity,
such attempts would be reprehensible in a translator, even
if he possessed the ^Eschylean scholarship of Paley or Con-
ington, and the genius and versification of Marlowe.

Where, however, as in 1. 369, we know by the structure
of the me* re that only a few syllables are lost, the case is
different. It seems idle to leave a vacant space in the
English where the Greek is, by consideration of the context,
pretty clear, and in such cases I have followed the explana-
tion, and sometimes translated the conjecture, of Conington
or others.

Secondly, wherever, as in the chorus above specified, it is
known, by metrical laws and by the unintelligible text, that
the original has been in some way corrupted, I have followed
a plan which may need excuse. To reproduce ^Eschylus in
an unintelligible form is a sin against /Eschylus himself.
Whatever he may actually have written, one thing is
certain it was intelligible, it was metrical. We may note,
also, that in many places where the text is indubitably

134 THE LIBATION-BEARERS

corrupt, ungrammatical, and unmetrical, the thought and
meaning are pretty clear. Such, e.g., is the case in 11.
415-417, tirw KO,\&S. In such cases I have followed the
apparent cue of the context, after consulting the best com-
mentators. ?r/)6s rb </)a,vei<rOal yuoi /caXws is not ^Eschylus*
Greek for "to the new dawn of gladness." But we know
from the metre that the Greek is corrupt ; the words as they
stand are probably a gloss, explaining, in inferior Greek,
some metaphor representing hope or joy as a dawn a
metaphor very familiar to all readers of ^Eschylus (cf. Agam.
11. 101, 253, 1182, etc.) very suitable to tb" context, and
very closely indicated by the gloss. I do not conceive it to
be any part of a translator's duty to render literally Greek
words which are known, with absolute certainty, t. be
wrong. Yet to elucidate by means of the context and other
comparisons is, I am well aware, a u dim and perilous way."
All I can say is that I have never done so excjpt in three or
four cases where it seemed absolutely inevitable, and that,
in those cases, care and pains have not been spared to do it
as well as, to me, was possible.

THE FURIES

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS.

APOLLO.

ORESTES.

THE GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA.

CHORUS OF FURIES.

ATHENA.

ATTENDANTS OF ATHENA.

TWELVE ATHENIAN CITIZENS.

The Scene of the Drama is the Temple of Apollo, at Delphi :
afterwards, the 7'emple of Athena, on the Acropolis of
Athens, and the adjoining AreoJ)ag^is.

THE FURIES

The Temple at Delphi.

THE PYTHIAN PRIESTESS

FIRST, in this prayer, of all the gods I name

The prophet-mother Earth ; and Themis next,

Second who sat for so with truth is said

On this her mother's shrine oracular.

Then by her grace, who unconstrained allowed,

There sat thereon another child of Earth

T itaaian Phoebe. She, in after time,

Gave o'er the throne, as birthgift to a god,

Phoebus, who in his own bears Phoebe's name.

He from the lake and ridge of Delos' isle

Steered to the port of Pallas' Attic shores,

The home of ships ; and thence he passed and came

Unto this land and to Parnassus' shrine.

And at his side, with awe revering him,

There went the children of Hephaestus' seed,

The hewers of the sacred way, who tame

The stubborn tract that erst was wilderness.

And all this folk, and Delphos, chieftain-king
Of this their land, with honour gave him home ;
And in his breast Zeus set a prophet's soul,

38 THE FURIES

And gave to him this throne, whereoa he sits,
Fourth prophet of the shrine, and, Loxias hight,
Gives voice to that which Zeus his sire decrees.

Such gods I name in my preluding prayer,

And after them, I call with honour due

On Pallas, wardress of the fane, and Nymphs

Who dwell around the rock Corycian,

Where in the hollow cave, the wild birds' haunt,

Wander the feet of lesser gods ; and there,

Right well I know it, Bromian Bacchus Iwells,

Since he in godship led his Maenad host,

Devising death for Pentheus, whom they rent

Piecemeal, as hare among the hounds. And last,

I call on Pleistus' springs, Poseidon's might,

And Zeus most high, the great Accomplishes

Then as a seeress to the sacred chair

I pass and sit ; and may the powers divine

Make this mine entrance fruitful in response

Beyond each former Advent, triply blest.

And if there stand without, from Hellas bound,

Men seeking oracles, let each pass in

In order of the lot, as use allows ;

For the god guides whatever my tongue proclaims.

[She goes into the interior of the temple ; after
a short interval^ she returns in great fear.
Things fell to speak of, fell for eyes to see,
Have sped me forth again from Loxias' shrine,
With strength unstrung, moving erect no more,
But aiding with my hands my failing feet,
Unnerved by fear. A beldame's force is naught
Is as a child's, when age and fear combine.
For as I pace towards the inmost fane
Bay-filleted by many a suppliant's hand,
Lo, at the central altar I descry

THE FURIES 139

One crouching ac, for refuge yea, a man
Abhorred of heaven ; and from his hands, wherein
A sword new-drawl* he holds, blood reeked and fell :
A wand he bears, the olive's topmost bough,
Twined as of purpose with a deep close tuft
Of whitest wool. This, that I plainly saw,
Plainly I tell. But lo, in front of him,
Crouched on the altar-steps, a grisly band
Of women slumbers not like women they,
But Gorgons rather ; nay, "that word is weak,
Nor may J rr itch the Gorgons' shape with theirs !
Such have I seen in painted semblance erst
Winged Harpies, snatching food from Phineus'

board,

But these are wingless, black, and all their shape
The eye's abomination to behold.
Fell is the breath let none draw nigh to it
Wherewith they snort in slumber ; from their eyes
Exude the damned drops of poisonous ire :
And such their garb as none should dare to bring
To statues of the gods or homes of men.
I wot not of the tribe wherefrom can come
So fell a legion, nor in what land Earth
Could rear, unharmed, such creatures, nor avow
That she had travailed and had brought forth death.
But, for the rest, be all these things a care
Unto the mighty Loxias, the lord
Of this our shrine : healer and prophet he,
Discerner he of portents, and the cleanser
Of other homes behold, his own to cleanse ! \Exit.
[ The scene opens ^ disclosing the interior of the
temple : Orestes clings to the central altar;
the Ftiries lie slumbering at a little dis-
tance ; Apollo and Hermes appear from
the innermost shrine.

140 THE FURIES

APOLLO

Lo, I desert thee never : to the end,

Hard at thy side as now, or sundered far,

I am thy guard, and to thine enemies

Implacably oppose me : look on them,

These greedy fiends, beneath my craft subdued !

See, they are fallen on sleep, these beldames old,

Unto whose grim and wizened maidenhood

Nor god nor man nor beast can e'er dn w near.

Yea, evil were they born, for evil's doom,

Evil the dark abyss of Tartarus

Wherein they dwell, and they themselves the haie

Of men on earth, and of Olympian gods.

But thou, flee far and with unfaltering speed ;

For they shall hunt thee through the mainland wide

Where'er throughout the tract of travelled earth

Thy foot may roam, and o'er and o'er the seas

And island homes of men. Faint not nor fail,

Too soon and timidly within thy breast

Shepherding thoughts forlorn of this thy toil ;

But unto Pallas' city go, and there

Crouch at her shrine, and in thine arms enfold

Her ancient image : there we well shall find

Meet judges for this cause and suasive pleas,

Skilled to contrive for thee deliverance

From all this woe. Be such my pledge to thee,

For by my hest thou didst thy mother slay.

ORESTES

O king Apollo, since right well thou know'st
What justice bids, have heed, fulfil the same,
Thy strength is all-sufficient to achieve.

THE FURIES 141

APOLLO

Have thou too heeu, nor let thy fear prevail
AboVe thy will. And do thou guard him, Hermes,
Whose blood is brother unto mine, whose sire
The same high God. Men call thee guide and guard,
Guide therefore thou and guard my suppliant ;
For Zeus himself reveres the outlaw's right,
Boon of fair escort, upon man conferred.

{Exeunt Apollo, Hermes, and Orestes.
77ie Ghost of Clytemnestra rises.

GHOST OF CLYTEMNESTRA

Sleep on ! awake ! what skills your sleep to me

Me, among all the dead by you dishonoured

Me from whom never, in the world of death,

Dieth this curse, ^Tis she who smote and sleiv y

And shamed and scorned I roam ? Awake, and hear

My plaint of dead men's hate intolerable.

Me. sternly slain by them that should have loved,

Me doth no god arouse him to avenga,

Hewii down in blood by matricidal hands.

Mark ye these wounds from which the heart's blood

ran,

And by whose hand, bethink ye I for the sense
When shut in sleep hath then the spirit-sight,
But in the day the inward eye is blind.
List, ye who drank so oft with lapping tongue
The wineless draught by me outpoured to soothe
Your vengeful ire ! how oft on kindled shrine
I laid the feast of darkness, at the hour
Abhorred of every god but you alone !
Lo, all my service trampled down and scorned !
nd he hath baulked your chase, as stag the hounds ;
Yea, lightly bounding from the circling toils,

142 THE FURIES

Hath wried his face in scorn, and fheth far.
Awake and hear for mine own soul I cry
Awake, ye powers of hell ! the wandering ghost
That once was Clytemnestra calls Arise !

[ The Furies mutter grimly, as in a dream.
Mutter and murmur ! He hath flown afar
My kin have gods to guard them, I have none !

[ The Furies mutter as before.
O drowsed in sleep too deep to heed my pain !
Orestes flies, who me, his mother, slew.

\TJte Furies give a a if used i,ry.
Yelping, and drowsed again ? Up and be doing
That which alone is yours, the deed of hell !

[ The Furies give another cry.
Lo, sleep and toil, the sworn confederates,
Have quelled your dragon-anger, once so fell !

THE FURIES (muttering more fiercely and loudly)
Seize, seize, seize, seize mark, yonder!

GHOST

In dreams ye chase a prey, and like some 'nound,
That even in sleep doth ply his woodland toil,
Ye bell and bay. What do ye, sleeping here ?
Be not overcome with toil, nor, sleep-subdued,
Be heedless of my wrong. Up ! thrill your heart
With the just chidings of my tongue, such words
Are as a spur to purpose firmly held.
Blow forth on him the breath of wrath and blood,
Scorch him with reek of fire that burns in you,
Waste him with new pursuit swift, hound him down !

\Ghost sinks.

FIRST FURY (awaking)
Up ! rouse another as I rouse thee : up !

THE FURIES 143

Sleep'st thou ? Rise up, and spurning sleep away,
See we if false to us this prelude rang.

CHORUS OF FURIES

Alack, alack, O sisters, we have toiled,

O much and vainly have we toiled and borne !

Vainly ! and all we wrought the gods have foiled,

And turned us to sdorn !
He hath slipped from the net, whom we chased : he

hath 'scaped us who should be our prey
O'crmaste^d by slumber we sank, and our quarry

hath stolen away !
Thou, child of the high God Zeus, Apollo, hast robbed

us and wronged ;
Thou, a youth, hast down-trodden the right that to

godship more ancient belonged ;
Thou hast cherished thy suppliant man ; the slayer,

the God-forsaken,
The bane of a parent, by craft from out of our grasp

thou hast taken ;
A god, thou hast stolen from us the avengers a

matrcide son

And who shall consider thy deed and say, It is right-
fully done ?

The sound of chiding scorn
Came from the land of dream ;
Deep to mine inmost heart I felt it thrill and burn,
Thrust as a strong-grasped goad, to urge

Onward the chariot's team.
Thrilled, chilled with bitter inward pain
I stand as one beneath the doomsman's scourge.
Shame on the younger gods who tread down right,

Sitting on thrones of might !
Woe on the altar of earth's central fane !

144 THE FURIES

Clotted on step and shrine,
Behold, the guilt of blood, the ghastly stain !
Woe upon thee, Apollo ! uncontrolled,

Unbidden, hast thou, prophet-god, imbrued
The pure prophetic shrine with wrongful blood !
For thou too heinous a respect didst hold
Of man, too little heed of powers divine !

And us the Fates, the ancients of the earth,

Didst deem as nothing worth.
Scornful to me thou art, yet shalt not fend

My wrath from him ; though unto hell he flee,

There too are we !

And he the blood-defiled, should feel and rue,
Though I were not, fiend- wrath that shall not end,
Descending on his head who foully slew.

\Re-enter Apollo from the inner shrine.

APOLLO

Out ! I command you. Out from this rhy home
Haste, tarry not ! Out from the mystic shrine,
Lest thy lot be to take into thy breast l
The winged bright dart that from my golden stiing
Speeds hissing as a snake, lest, pierced and thrilled
With agony, thou shouldst spew forth again
Black frothy heart's-blood, drawn from mortal men,
Belching the gory clots sucked forth from wounds.
These be no halls where such as you can prowl
Go where men lay on men the doom of blood,
Heads lopped from necks, eyes from their spheres
plucked out,

1 It may be well to explain that a chorus is, in tlus play as
elsewhere, spoken of in the singular or the plural, inamerently.
The singular is perhaps addressed to the leader, as representa-
tive of the rest ; but no difference is to be found in the appli-
cation of such speeches, whether the singular or the phual
be used.

:THE FURIES 145

Hacked flesh, the flower of youthful seed crushed out,

Feet hewn away, and hands, and death beneath

The smiting stone, low moans and piteous

Of men impalsd Hark, hear ye for what feast

Ye hanker ever, and the loathing gods

Do spit upon your craving ? Lo, your shape

Is all too fitted to your greed ; the cave

Where lurks some lion, lapping gore, were home

More meet for you. Avaunt from sacred shrines,

Nor bring pollution by your touch on all

That nearo you. Hence ! and roam unshepherded

No god there is to tend such herd as you.

CHORUS

king Apollo, in our turn hear us.
Thou hast not only part in these ill things,
But art chief cause and doer of the same.

APOLLO
How ? stretch thy speech to tell this,, and have done,

CHORUS
Thine oracle bade this man slay his mother.

APOLLO

1 bade him quit his sire's death, wherefore not ?

CHORUS
Then didst thou aid and guard red-handed crime.

APOLLO
Yea, and I bade him to this temple flee.

CHORUS

And yet forsootfy, dost chide us following him !

L

146 THE FURIES

APOLLO
Ay not for you it is, to near this fane.

CHORUS
Yet is such office ours, imposed by fate.

APOLLO
What office ? vaunt the thing ye deem so fair.

CHORUS
From home to home we chase the matricide.

APOLLO
What ? to avenge a wife who slays her lord ?

CHORUS

That is not blood outpoured by kindred hands.
APOLLO

How darkly ye dishonour and annul

The troth to which the high accomplishes,

Hera and Zeus, do honour. Yea, and thus

Is Aphrodite to dishonour cast,

The queen of rapture unto mortal men.

Know, that above the marriage-bed ordained

For man and woman standeth Right as guard,

Enhancing sanctity of troth-plight sworn ;

Therefore, if thou art placable to those

Who have their consort slain, nor will's t to turn

On them the eye of wrath, unjust art thou

In hounding to his doom the man who slew %

His mother. Lo, I know thee full of wrath

Against one deed, but all too placable

Unto the other, minishing the crime.

But in this cause shall Pallas gua^d the right.

THE FURIES 147

CHORUS
Deem not my quest shall ever quit that man.

APOLLO
Follow then, make thee double toil in vain !

CHORUS
Think not by speech mine office to curtail.

APOLLO
None hast thou, that I would accept of thee !

CHORUS

Yea, high thine honour by the throne of Zeus :
But I, drawn on by scent of mother's blood,
Seek vengeance on tris man and hound him down.

APOLLO

But I will stand beside him ; 'tis for me
To guard my suppliant : gods and men alike
Do dread the curse of such an one betrayed,
And in me Fear and Will say Leave him not.

\Exeunt omnes.

The scene changes to Athens. In the foreground^ the
Temple of Athena on the Acropolis ; her statue
stands in the centre ; Orestes is seen clinging
to it.

ORESTES

Look on me, queen Athena ; lo, I come
By Loxias' behest ; thou of thy grace
Receive me, driven of avenging powers
Not now a red-hand slayer unannealed,
But with guilt fading, half-effaced, outworn
On many homes and paths of mortal men.

148 THE FURIES

For to the limit of each land, each sea,
I roamed, obedient to Apollo's hest,
And come at last, O Goddess, to thy fane,
And clinging to thine image, bide r^y doom.
\Enter the Chorus of Furies, questing like hounds.

CHORUS

Ho ! clear is here the trace of him we seek :
Follow the track of blood, the silent sign !
Like to some hound that hunts a wounded fawn,
We snuff along the scent of dripping gore,
And inwardly we pant, for many a day
Toiling in chase that shall fordo the man ;
For o'er and o'er the wide land have I ranged,
And o'er the wide sea, flying without wings,
Swift as a sail I pressed upon his trade,
Who now hard by is crouching, well I wot,
For scent of mortal blood allures me here.
Follow, seek him round and round
Scent and snuff and scan the grourd,
Lest unharmed he slip away,
He who did his mother slay !
Hist he is there ! See him his arms entwine
Around the image of the maid divine
Thus aided, for the deed he wrought
Unto the judgment wills he to be brought.

It may not be ! a mother's blood, poured forth

Upon the stained earth,
None gathers up : it lies bear witness, Hell !--

For aye indelible I
And thou who sheddest it shalt give thine own

That shedding to atone !
Yea, from thy living limbs I suck it out,

Red, clotted, gout by gout,

THE FURIES 149

A draught abho?red of men and gods ; but I

Will drain it, suck thee dry ;
Yea, 1 will waste thee living, nerve and vein ;

Yea, fqr thy mother slain,
Will drag thee downward, there where thou shalt dree

The weird of agony !

And thou and whosoe'er of men hath sinned-
Hath wronged or God, or friend,
Or parent, learn ye how to all and each

The arm of doom can reach !
Sternly re^;uiteth, in the world beneath,

The judgment-seat of Death ;
Yea. Death, beholding every man's endeavour,

Recordeth it for ever.

ORESTES

I, schooled in many miseries, have learnt

How many refuges of cleansing shrines

There be ; I know when law alloweth speech

And when imposeth silence. Lo, I stand

Fixed n^w to speak, for he whose word is wise

Commands the same. Look, how the stain of blood

Is dull upon mine hand and wastes away,

And laved and lost therewith is the deep curse

Of matricide ; for while the guilt was new,

'Twas banished from me at Apollo's hearth,

Atoned and purified by death of swine.

Long were my word if I should sum the tale,

How oft since then among my fellow-men

I stood and brought no curse. Time cleanses all

Time, the coeval of all things that are.

Now from pure lips, in words of omen fair,
I call Athena, lady of this land,
To come, my champion : so, in aftertime,
She shall not fail of love and service leal,

ISO THE FURIES

Not won by war, from me and from my land
And all the folk of Argos, vowed to her.
Now, be she far away in Libyan land
Where flows from Triton's lake her natal wave,
Stand she with planted feet, 1 or in some hour
Of rest conceal them, champion of her friends
Where'er she be, or whether o'er the plain
Phlegraean she look forth, as warrior bold
I cry to her to come, where'er she be,
(And she, as goddess, from afar can hear,)
And aid and free me, set among my foes.

CHORUS

Thee not Apollo nor Athena's strength

Can save from perishing, a castaway

Amid the Lost, where no delight shall meet

Thy soul a bloodless prey or nether powers,

A shadow among shadows. Answerest thou

Nothing ? dost cast away my words with scorn,

Thou, prey prepared and dedicate to me ?

Not as a victim slain upon the shrine,

But living shalt thou see thy flesh my food.

Hear now the binding chant that makes thee mine.

Weave the weird dance, behold the hour

To utter forth the chant of hell,

Our sway among mankind to tell,
The guidance of our power.
Of Justice are we ministers,

And whosoe'er of men may stand

Lifting a pure unsullied hand,
That man no doom of ours incurs,

And walks thro' all his mortal path

1 The allusion is probably to statues of Athena at rest and
in motion. Cf. i Kings xviii. 27.

THE FURIES 151

Untouched by woe, unharmed by wrath.

But if, as yonder man, he hath

Blood on the hands he strives to hide,

We stand avengers at his side,
Decreeing, Thou hast wronged the dead :

We are doom's witnesses to thee.
The price of blood, his hands have shed,
We wring from him ; in life, in death,

Hard at his side are we I

Night, M^tLer Night, who brought me forth, a torment

To living men and dead,
Hear me, O hear ! by Leto's stripling son

I am dishonoured :
He hath ta'en from me him who cowers in refuge,

To me made consecrate,
A rightful victim, him who slew his mother.

Given o'er to me and fate.

Hear the hymn of hell,

O'er the victim sounding,
Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,

Sense and will confounding !
Round the soul entwining

Without lute or lyre
Soul in madness pining,

Wasting as with fire !

Fate, all-pervading Fate, this service spun, com-
manding

That I should bide therein :
Whosoe'er of mortals, made perverse and lawless,

Is stained with blood of kin,
?3y his side are we, and hunt him ever onward,

Till to the Silent Land,

152 THE FURIES

The realm of death, he cometh ; neither yonder
In freedom shall he stand.

Hear the hymn of hell,

O'er the victim sounding,
Chant of frenzy, chant of ill,

Sense and will confounding !
Round the soul entwining

Without lute or lyre
Soul in madness pining,

Wasting as with fire !

When from womb of Night we sprang, on us this labour

Was laid and shall abide.
Gods immortal are ye, yet beware ye touch not

That which is our pride !

None may come beside us gathered round the blood-
feast

For us no garments white
Gleam on a festal day ; for us a darker fate is,

Another darker rite.
That is mine hour when falls an ancient line

When in the household's heart
The God of blood doth slay by kindred hands,

Then do we bear our part :
On him who slays we sweep with chasing cry :

Though he be triply strong,
We wear and waste him ; blood atones for blood,

New pain for ancient wrong.

I hold *this task 'tis mine, and not another's.

The very gods on high,
Though they can silence and annul the prayers

Of those who on us cry,

THE FURIES 153

They may not sifive with us who stand apart,

A race by Zeus abhorred,
Blood-boltered, held unworthy of the council

And converse of Heaven's lord.
Therefore the more I leap upon my prey ;

Upon their head I bound ;
My foot is hard ; as one that trips a runner

I cast them to the ground ;
Yea, to the depth of doom intolerable ;

And they who erst were great,
And upon earth held high their pride and glory,

Are brought to low estate.
In underworld they waste and are diminished,

The while around them fleet
Dark wavings of my robes, and, subtly woven,

The paces of my feet.

Who falls infatuate, he sees not neither knows he

That we are at his side ;
So closely round about him, darkly flitting,

The cloud of guilt doth glide.
Heavily '*is uttered, how around his hearthstone

The mirk of hell doth rise.
Stern and fixed the law is ; we have hands t' achieve it,

Cunning to devise.
Queens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance :

Not by tear or prayer
Shall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness,

Far from gods, we fare,
Lit unto our task with torch of sunless regions,

And o'er a deadly way
Deadly to the living as to those who see not

Life and light of day
Hunt we and press onward. Who of mortals hearing

Doth not quake for awe,

154 THE FURIES

Hearing all that Fate thro 7 hand of Vl*od hath given us

For ordinance and law ?
Yea, this right to us, in dark abysm and backward

Of ages it befel :
None shall wrong mine office, tho' in nether regions

And sunless dark I dwell.

[Enter Athena from above.

ATHENA

Far off I heard the clamour of your cry,
As by Scamander's side I set my foot
Asserting right upon the land given o'er
To me by those who o'er Achaia's host
Held sway and leadership : no scanty part
Of all they won by spear and sword, to me
They gave it, land and all that grew thereon,
As chosen heirloom for my Tneseus' clan.
Thence summoned, sped I with a tireless foot,
Hummed on the wind, instead of wings, the fold
Of this mine aegis, by my feet propelled,
As, linked to mettled horses, speeds a car.
And now, beholding here Earth's nether brood,
I fear it nought, yet are mine eyes amazed
With wonder. Who are ye ? of all I ask,
And of this stranger to my statue clinging.
But ye your shape is like no human form,
Like to no goddess whom the gods behold,
Like to no shape which mortal women wear.
Yet to stand by and chide a monstrous form
Is all unjust from such words Right revolts,

CHORUS

O child of Zeus, one word shall tell thee all.
We are the children of eternal Night,
And Furies in the underworld are called.

THE FURIES 155

ATHENA
I know your lineage now and eke your name.

CHORUS
Yea, and eftsoons indeed my rights shalt know.

ATHENA
Fain would I learn them ; speak them clearly forth,

CHORUS
We chase from home the murderers of men.

ATHENA
And where at last can he that slew make pause ?

CHORUS
Where this is law All joy abandon here.

ATHENA
Say, do ye bay this man to such a flight ?

CHORUS
Yea, for of choice he did his mother slay.

ATHENA
Urged by no fear of other wrath and doom ?

CHORUS
What spur can rightly goad to matricide ?

ATHENA
Two stand to plead one only have I heard.

CHORUS
He will not swear nor challenge us to oath.

156 THE FURIES

ATHENA
The form of justice, not its deed, tliou wiliest.

CHORUS
Prove thou that word ; thou art not scant of skill

ATHENA
I say that oaths shall not enforce the wrong.

CHORUS
Then test the cause, judge and award the right.

ATHENA
Will ye to me then this decision trust ?

CHORUS
Yea, reverencing true child of worthy sire.

ATHENA (to Orestes)

O man unknown, make thou thy plea in turn.
Speak forth thy land, thy lineage, and thy woes ,
Then, if thou canst, avert this bitter blame
If, as I deem, in confidence of right
Thou sittest hard beside my holy place,
Clasping this statue, as Ixion sat,
A sacred suppliant for Zeus to cleanse,
To all this answer me in words made plain.

ORESTES

O queen Athena, first from thy last words
Will I a great solicitude remove.
Not one blood-guilty am I ; no foul stain
Clings to thine image from my clinging hand ;
Whereof one potent proof I have to tell.

,THE FURIES 157

Lo, the law stands The slayer shall not plead,

Till by the hand of him who cleanses blood

A suckling creature's blood besprinkle him.

Long since have I this expiation done,

In many a home, slain beasts and running streams

Have cleansed me. Thus I speak away that fear.

Next, of my lineage quickly thou shalt learn :

An Argive am I, and right well thou know'st

My sire, that Agamemnon who arrayed

The fleet and them that went therein to war

Th'at chief with whom thy hand combined to crush

To an uncitied heap what once was Troy ;

Th?+ Agamemnon, when he homeward came,

Was brought unto no honourable death,

Slain by the dark-souled wife who brought me forth

To him, e^wound and slain in wily nets,

Blazoned with blood that in the laver ran.

And I, returning from an exiled youth,

Slew her, my mother lo, it stands avowed !

With blcod for blood avenging my loved sire ;

And in Jiis deed doth Loxias bear part,

Decreeing agonies, to goad my will,

Unless by me the guilty found their doom.

Do thou decide if right or wrong were done

Thy dooming, whatsoe'er it be, contents me.

ATHENA

Too mighty is this matter, whosoe'er
Of mortals claims to judge hereof aright.
Yea, me, even me, eternal Right forbids
To judge the issues of blood-guilt, and wrath
That follows swift behind. This too gives pause,
That thou as one with all due rites performed
Dost come, unsinning, pure, unto my shrine.
Whate'er thou art, in this my city's name,

r 5 S THE FURIES

As uncondemned, I take thee to my side.

Yet have these foes of thine such dues by fate,

I may not banish them : and if they fail,

O'erthrown in judgment of the cause, forthwith

Their anger's poison shall infect the land

A dropping plague-spot of eternal ill.

Thus stand we with a woe on either hand :

Stay they, or go at my commandment forth,

Perplexity or pain must needs befall.

Yet, as on me Fate hath imposed the cause,

I choose unto me judges that shall be

An ordinance for ever, set to rule

The dues of blood-guilt, upon oath declared.

But ye, call forth your witness and your proof,

Words strong for justice, fortified by oath ;

And I, whoe'er are truest in my town,

Them will I choose and bring, and straitly charge,

Look on this cause, discriminating well^

And pledge your oath to utter nought of wrong.

[Exit Athena.

CHORUS

Now are they all undone, the ancient laws,

If here the slayer's cause
Prevail ; new wrong for ancient right shall be

If matricide go free.
Henceforth a deed like his by all shall stand,

Too ready to the hand :
Too oft shall parents in the aftertime

Rue and lament this crime,
Taught, not in false imagining, to feel

Their children's thrusting steel :
No more the wrath, that erst on murder fell

From us, the queens of Hell,

THE FURIES 159

Shall fall, no more our watching gaze impend
Death shall smite unrestrained.

Henceforth shall one unto another cry
Lo, they are stricken, lo, they fall and die
Around me ! and that other answers him,

thou that lookest that thy woes should cease,

Behold, with dark increase
They throng and press upon theej yea, and dim
Is all the cure, and every comfort vain /

Let none henceforth cry out, when falls the blow

Of sudden-smiting woe,
Cry out in sad reiterated strain
Justice, aid! aid, O ye thrones of Hell!

So though a father or a mother wail
New-smitten by a son, it shall no more avail,
Since, overthrown by wrong, the fane of Justice fell !

Know, th?t a thron^Ihfcre isjhat may not pass away,,.

And o.ie tjiat^kteth on it even Fear,
Searchiirjfwith steadfast eyes man's inner soul :
Wisdom is child of pain, and born with many a tear ;

But who henceforth,

What man of mortal men, what nation upon earth,
That holdeth nought in awe nor in the light
Of inner reverence, shall worship Right

As in the older day ?

Praise not, O man, the life beyond control,
Nor that which bows unto a tyrant's sway.

Know that the middle way
Is dearest unto God, and they thereon who wend,

They shall achieve the end ;
But they who wander or to left or right
Are sinners in his sight.

160 THE FURIES

Take to thy heart this one, this soothfast word

Of wantonness impiety is sire ;
Only from calm control and sanity unstirred
Cometh true weal, the goal of every man's desire.

Yea, whatsoe'er befall, hold thou this word of mine :

Bow down at Justic^ shrine^
Turn thou thine eyes away from earthly lure^
Nor with a godless foot that altar spurn.
For as thou dost shall Fate do in return,

And the great doom is sure.
Therefore let each adore a parent's trust,
And each with loyalty revere the guest

That in his halls doth rest.
For whoso uncompelled doth follow what is just,

He ne'er shall be unblest ;
Yea, never to the gulf of doom
That man shall come.

But he whose will is set against the gods,

Who treads beyond the law with foot impure,
Till o'er the wreck of Right confusion broods,
Know that for him, though now he sail secure,
The day of storm shall be ; then shall he strive and fail

Down from the shivered yard to furl the sail,
And call on Powers, that heed him nought, to save,
And vainly wrestle with the whirling wave.
Hot was his heart with pride
I shall not fal^ he cried.
But him with watching scorn
The god beholds, forlorn,
Tangled in toils of Fate beyond escape,
Hopeless of haven safe beyond the cape
Till all his wealth and bliss of bygone day
Upon the reef of Rightful Doom is hurled,

THE FURIES 161

Antfhe is rapt away

Unwept, for ever, to the dead forgotten world.
\_Re-enterAfiiena, with twelve Athenian citizens.

ATHENA

O herald, make proclaim, bid all men come.
Then let the shrill blast of the Tyrrhene trump,
Fulfilled with mortal breath, thro' the wide air
Peal a loud summons, bidding all men heed.
For, till my judges fill this judgment-seat,
Silence behoves, that this whole city learn,
What for all time mine ordinance commands,
And these men, that the cause be judged aright

[Apollo approaches.

CHORUS

O king Apollo, rule what is thine own,

But in this thing what share pertains to thee ?

APOLLO

Firstj as a witness come I, for this man
Is supnliant of mine by sacred right,
Guest of my holy hearth and cleansed by me
Of blood-guilt : then, to set me at his side
And in his cause bear part, as part I bore
Erst in his deed, whereby his mother fell.
Let whoso knoweth now announce the cause.

ATHENA (to the Chorus)

'Tis I announce the cause first speech be yours ;
For rightfully shall they whose plaint is tried
Tell the tale first and set the matter clear.

CHORUS

Though we be many, brief shall be our tale.
M

162 THE FURIES

(To Orestes) Answer thou, setting wo*d to match with

word ;
And first avow hast thou thy mocher slain ?

ORESTES,
I slew her. I deny no word hereof.

CHORUS
Three falls decide the wrestle this is one.

ORESTES
Thou vauntest thee but o'er no final fall.

CHORUS
Yet must thou tell the manner of thy deed.

ORESTES
Drawn sword in hand, I gashed her neck. 'Tis told.

CHORUS
But by whose word, whose craft, wert thou impelled ?

ORESTES
By oracles of him who here attests me.

CHORUS
The prophet-god bade thee thy mother slay ?

ORESTES
Yea, and thro' him less ill I fared, till now.

CHORUS
If the vote grip thee, thou shalt change that word.

ORESTES
Strong is my hope ; my buried sire shall aid.

THE FURIES 163

CHORUS
Go to now, trust the dead, a matricide !

ORESTES
Yea, for in her combined two stains of sin.

CHORUS
How ? speak this clearly to the judges' mind

ORESTES
Slaying her husband, she did slay my sire.

CHORUS
Therefore thou livest ; death assoils her deed.

ORESTES
Then while she lived why didst thou hunt her not ?

CHORUS
She was not kin by blood to him she slew.

ORESTES
And I, am I by blood my mother's kin ?

CHORUS

O cursed with murder's guilt, how else wert thou
The burden of her womb ? Dost thou forswear
Thy mother's kinship, closest bond of love ?

ORESTES

It is thine hour, Apollo speak the law,
Averring if this deed were justly done ;
For done it is, and clear and undenied.
Bat if to thee this murder's cause seem right
Or wrongful, speak that I to these may tell.

164 THE FURIES

APOLLO

To you, Athena's mighty council-court,
Justly for justice will I plead, even I,
The prophet-god, nor cheat you by one word.
For never spake I from my prophet-seat
One word, of man, of woman, or of state,
Save what the Father of Olympian gods
Commanded unto me. I rede you then,
Bethink you of my plea, how strong it stands,
And follow the decree of Zeus our sire,- -
For oaths prevail not over Zeus' command.

CHORUS

Go to ; thou sayest that from Zeus befel
The oracle that this Orestes bade
With vengeance quit the slaying of his sire,
And hold as nought his mother's right of kin !

APOLLO

Yea, for it stands not with a common death,
That he should die, a chieftain and a king
Decked with the sceptre which high heaven confers
Die, and by female hands, not smitten down
By a far-shooting bow, held stalwartly
By some strong Amazon. Another doom
Was his : O Pallas, hear, and ye who sit
In judgment, to discern this thing aright !
She with a specious voice of welcome true
Hailed him, returning from the mighty mart
i Where war for^ life .gives fame, triumphant home ;
Then o'er the laver, as he bathed himself,
She spread from head to foot a covering net,
And in the endless mesh of cunning robes
En wound and trapped her lord, and smote him down.

THE FURIES 165

Lo, ye have heilrtl what doom this chieftain met,
The majesty of Greece, the fleet's high lord :
Such as I tell it, lt it gall your ears,
Who stand asjudges to decide this cause.

CHORUS

Zeus, as thou sayest, holds a father's death
As first of crimes, yet he of his own act
Cast into chains his father, Cronos old :
How suits that deed with that which now ye tell ?
O ye who juJge, I bid ye mark my words 1

APOLLO

O monsters loathed of all, O scorn of gods,
He that hath bound may loose : a cure there is,
Yea, many a plan that can unbind the chain.
But when the thirsty dust sucks up man's blood
Once shed in death, he shall arise no more.
No chant nor charm for this my Sire hath wrought.
All else there is, he moulds and shifts at will,
Not scant of strength nor breath, what e'er he do.

CHORUS

Think yet, for what acquittal thou dost plead :
He who hath shed a mother's kindred blood,
Shall he in Argos dwell, where dwelt his sire ?
How shall he stand before the city's shrines,
How share the clansmen's holy lustral bowl

APOLLO

This too I answer ; mark a soothfast word
Not the true parent is the woman's womb
That bears the child ; she doth but nurse the seed
New-sown : the male is parent ; she for him,
As stranger for a stranger, hoards the germ

166 THE FURIES

Of life, unless the god its promise blight.
And proof hereof before you will I set.
Birth may from fathers, without mothers, be :
See at your side a witness of the same,
Athena, daughter of Olympian Zeus,
Never within the darkness of the womb
Fostered nor fashioned, but a bud more bright
Than any goddess in her breast might bear.
And I, O Pallas, howsoe'er I may,
Henceforth will glorify thy town, thy clan,
And for this end have sent my supplLnt here
Unto thy shrine ; that he from this time forth
Be loyal unto thee for evermore,

goddess-queen, and thou unto thy side
Mayst win and hold him faithful, and his line,
And that for aye this pledge and troth remain
To children's children of Athenian seed.

ATHENA

Enough is said ; I bid the judges now
With pure intent deliver just award.

CHORUS

We too have shot our every shaft of speech,
And now abide to hear the doom of law.

ATHENA (to Apollo and Orestes)
Say, how ordaining shall I 'scape your blame ?
APOLLO

1 spake, ye heard ; enough. O stranger men,
Heed well your oath as ye decide the cause.

ATHENA

O men of Athens, ye who first do judge
The law of bloodshed, hear me now ordain.

THE FURIES 167

Here to all thhe for ^geus' Attic host 1

Shall stand this council-court of judges sworn,

Here the tribunal, set on Ares' Hill

Where cainped of old the tented Amazons,

What time in hate of Theseus they assailed

Athens, and set against her citadel

A counterwork of new sky-pointing towers,

And there to Ares held their sacrifice,

Where now the rock hath name, even Ares' Hill.

And hence shall Reverence and her kinsman Fear

Pass tr each free man's heart, by day and night

Enjoining, Thou shalt do no unjust thing^

So long as law stands as it stood of old

Unmarred by civic change. Look you, the spring

Is pure ; but foul it once with influx vile

And muddy clay, and none can drink thereof.

Therefore, O citizens, I bid ye bow

In awe to this command, Let no man live

Uncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny ;

Nor banish ye the monarchy of Awe

Beyond the -walfif; Untouched by fear divine,

No ^iran-doth" jlistice in the world of men.

Therefore in purity and holy dread

Stand and revere ; so shall ye have and hold

A saving bulwark of the state and land,

Such as no man hath ever elsewhere known,

Nor in far Scythia, nor in Pelops' realm.

Thus I ordain it now, a council-court

Pure and unsullied by the lust of gain,

Sacred and swift to vengeance, wakeful ever

To champion men who sleep, the country's guard.

Thus have I spoken, thus to mine own clan

Commended it for ever. Ye who judge,

1 See Appendix.

168 THE FURIES

Arise, take each his vote, mete OIK the right,
Your oath revering. Lo, my word is said.

[The twelve judges come fa ward y one by one>
to the urns of decision; the first votes ; as
each of the others follows, the Chorus and
Apollo speak alternately.

CHORUS

I rede ye well, beware ! nor put to shame,
In aught, this grievous company of hell.

APOLLO

I too would warn you, fear mine oracles

From Zeus they are, nor make them void of fruit.

CHORUS

Presumptuous is thy claim, blood-guilt to judge,
And false henceforth thine oracles shall be.

APOLLO

Failed then the counsels of my sire, when turned
Ixion, first of slayers, to his side ?

CHORUS

These are but words ; but I, if justice fail me,
Will haunt this land in grim and deadly deed.

APOLLO

Scorn of the younger and the elder gods
Art thou : 'tis I that shall prevail anon.

CHORUS

Thus didst thou too of old in Pheres' halls,
O'erreaching Fate to make a mortal deathless.

THE FURIES 169

APOLLO

Was it not well* my worshipper to aid,

Then most .of all when hardest was the need ?

CHORUS

I say thou didst annul the lots of life,
Cheating with wine the deities of eld.

APOLLO

1 say tLou shalt anon, thy pleadings foiled,
Spit venom vainly on thine enemies.

CHORUS

Since this young god overrides mine ancient right,

I tarry brt to claim your law, not knowing

If wrath of mine shall blast your state or spare.

ATHENA

Mine is the right to add the final vote,

And I award it to Orestes' cause.

For me no mother bore within her womb,

And, save for wedlock evermore eschewed,

I vouch myself the champion of the man,

Not of the woman, yea, with all my soul,

In heart, as birth, a father's child alone.

Thus will I not too heinously regard

A woman's death who did her husband slay,

The guardian of her home ; and if the votes

Equal do fall, Orestes shall prevail.

Ye of the judges who are named thereto,
Swiftly shake forth the lots from either urn.

[ Two judges come forward^
one to each urn.

170 THE FURIES

ORESTES
O bright Apollo, what shall be the end ?

CHORUS
O Night, dark mother mine, dost mark these things ?

ORESTES
Now shall my doom be life, or strangling cords.

CHORUS
And mine, lost honour or a wider sway.

APOLLO

O stranger judges, sum aright the count

Of votes cast forth, and, parting them, take heed

Ye err not in decision. The default

Of one vote only bringeth ruin deep,

One, cast aright, doth stablish house and home.

ATHENA

Behold, this man is free from guilt of blood,
For half the votes condemn him, half set free !

ORESTES

Pallas, light and safety of my home,

Thou, thou hast given me back to dwell once more
In that my fatherland, amerced of which

1 wandered ; now shall Grecian lips say this,
The man is A r give once again, and dwells
Again within his fathers wealthy hall,

By Pallas saved, by Loxias, and by Him,
The great third saviour, Zetts omnipotent
Who thus in pity for my father's fate
Doth pluck me from my doom, beholding these,
Confederates of my mother. Lo, I pass

THE FURIES 171

To mine own liome, but proffering this vow
Unto thy land and people : Nevermore ',
Thro* all the manifold years of Time to be.
Shall any chieftain of mine Argive land
Bear hitherward his spears for fight arrayed.
For we, though lapped in earth we then shall lie,
By thwart adversities will work our will
On them who shall transgress this oath of mine,
Paths of despair and journeyings ill-starred
For them ordaining, till their task they rue.
But if thib oath be rightly kept, to them
Will we the dead be full of grace, the while
With loyal league they honour Pallas 7 town.
And now farewell, thou and thy city's folk--
Firm be thine arms' grasp, closing with thy foes,
And, strong to save, bring victory to thy spear,

\Exit Orestes^ with Apollo.

CHORUS

Wo 3 on you, younger gods ! the ancient right
Ye have overridden, rent it from my hands.

I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn !

But heavily my wrath
Shall on this land fling forth the drops that blast and

burn,

Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe
As I have suffered ; where that dew shall fall,

Shall leafless blight arise,
Wasting Earth's offspring, Justice, hear my

call !

And thorough all the land in deadly wise
Shall scatter venom, to exude again

In pestilence on men.
What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,

172 THE FURIES

Unto this land what dark despite ?

Alack, alack, forlorn
Are we, a bitter injury have borne !
Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood
Of mother Night !

ATHENA

Nay, bow ye to my words, chafe not nor moan :
Ye are not worsted nor disgraced ; behold,
With balanced vote the cause had issue fair,
Nor in the end did aught dishonour thee.
But thus the will of Zeus shone clearly forth,
And his own prophet-god avouched the same,
Orestes slew ; his slaying is 'atoned.
Therefore I pray you, not upon this land
Shoot forth the dart of vengeance ; be apoeased,
Nor blast the land with blight, nor loose thereon
Drops of eternal venom, direful darts
Wasting and marring nature's seed of growth.
For I, the queen of Athens' sacred right,
Do pledge to you a holy sanctuary
Deep in the heart of this my land, made jus*
By your indwelling presence, while ye sit
Hard by your sacred shrines that gleam with oil
Of sacrifice, and by this folk adored.

CHORUS

Woe on you, younger gods ! the ancient right
Ye have overridden, rent it from my hands.

I am dishonoured of you, thrust to scorn !

But heavily my wrath
Shall on his land fling forth the drops that blast and

burn,

Venom of vengeance, that shall work such scathe
As I have suffered ; where that dew shall fall,

THE FURIES 173

Sha.il leafless blight arise,
Wasting Earth's offspring, Justice, hear my

call !

And thorough all the land in deadly wise
Shall scatter venom, to exude again

In pestilence on men.

What cry avails me now, what deed of blood,
Unto this land what dark despite ?

Alack, alack, forlorn
Are we, a bitter injury have borne !
Alack, O sisters, O dishonoured brood
Of mother Night!

ATHENA

Dishonoured are ye not ; turn not, I pray,

As goddesses your swelling wrath on men,

Nor make the friendly earth despiteful to them.

I too have Zeus for champion 'tis enough

I only of all goddesses do know

To ope the chamber where his thunderbolts

Lie stored and sealed ; but here is no such need.

Nay, be -appeased, nor cast upon the ground

The malice of thy tongue, to blast the world ;

Calm thou thy bitter wrath's black inward surge,

For high shall be thine honour, set beside me

For ever in this land, whose fertile lap

Shall pour its teeming firstfruits unto you,

Gifts for fair childbirth and for wedlock's crown :

Thus honoured, praise my spoken pledge for aye.

CHORUS

I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,
Ancient of days and wisdom ! I breathe forth
Poison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,
Woe, woe for thee, for me !

174 THE FURIES

From side to side what pains be these that thrill ?
Hearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony !
Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust,

And brought me to the dust
Woe, woe is me ! with craft invincible.

ATHENA

Older art thou than I, and I will bear

With this thy fury. Know, although thou be

More wise in ancient wisdom, yet have I

From Zeus no scanted measure of the saL.e,

Wherefore take heed unto this prophecy

If to another land of alien men

Ye go, too late shall ye feel longing deep

For mine. The rolling tides of time bring round

A day of brighter glory for this town ;

And thou, enshrined in honour by the halls

Where dwelt Erechtheus, shalt a worship win

From men and from the train of womankind,

Greater than any tribe elsewhere shall pay.

Cast thou not therefore on this soil of mine

Whetstones that sharpen souls to bloodshedd'ng,

The burning goads of youthful hearts, made hot

With frenzy of the spirit, not of wine.

Nor pluck as 'twere the heart from cocks that strive,

To set it in the breast of citizens

Of mine, a war-god's spirit, keen for fight,

Made stern against their country and their kin.

The man who grievously doth lust for fame,

War, full, immitigable, let him wage

Against the stranger ; but of kindred birds

I hold the challenge hateful. Such the boon

I proffer thee within this land of lands,

Most loved of gods, with me to show and share

Fair mercy, gratitude and grace as fair.

THE FURIES 175

CHORUS

I, I dishonoured in this earth to dwell,
Ancient of days and wisdom ! I breathe forth
Poison and breath of frenzied ire. O Earth,

Woe, woe for thee, for me !

From side to side what pains be these that thrill ?
Hearken, O mother Night, my wrath, mine agony !
Whom from mine ancient rights the gods have thrust,

And brought me to the dust
Woe, woe is me ! -with craft invincible.

ATHENA

I will not weary of soft words to thce,

That never mayst thou say, Behold me spurned^

An elder by a younger deity ^

And from this land rejected and forlorn,

Unhonoured by the men who dwell therein.

But, if Persuasion's grace be sacred to thee,

Soft in the soothing accents of my tongue,

Tarry, I pray thee ; yet, if go thou wilt,

Not iight*ully wilt thou on this my town

Sway down the scale that beareth wrath and teen

Or wasting plague upon this folk. 'Tis thine,

If so thou wilt, inheritress to be

Of this my land, its utmost grace to win.

CHORUS
O queen, what refuge dost thou promise me ?

ATHENA
Refuge untouched by bale : take thou my boon.

CHORUS
What, if I take it, shall mine honour be ?

176 THE FURIES

ATHENA
No house shall prosper without grace of thine.

CHORUS
Canst thou achieve and grant such power to me ?

ATHENA
Yea, for my hand shall bless thy worshippers.

CHORUS
And wilt thou pledge me this for time eterne ?

ATHENA
Yea : none can bid me pledge beyond my power,

CHORUS
Lo, I desist from wrath, appeased by thee.

ATHENA
Then in the land's heart shalt thou win thee r riends.

CHORUS
What chant dost bid me raise, to greet the land ?

ATHENA

Such as aspires towards a victory

Unrued by any : chants from breast of earth,

From wave, from sky ; and let the wild winds' breath

Pass with soft sunlight o'er the lap of land,

Strong wax the fruits of earth, fair teem the kine,

Unfailing, for my town's prosperity,

And constant be the growth of mortal seed*

But more and more root out the impious,

For as a gardener fosters what he sows,

fTHE FURIES 177

So foster I this rape, whom righteousness
Doth fend from sorrow. Such the proffered boon.
But I, if wars must^be, and their loud clash
And carnage, for my town, will ne'er endure
That aught but? victory shall crown her fame.

CHORUS

Lo, I accept it ; at her very side
Doth Pallas bid me dwell :
I will not wrong the city of her pride,
Which even Almighty Zeus and Ares hold

iieaven's earthly citadel,

Loved home of Grecian gods, the young, the old,
The sanctuary divine,
The shield of every shrine !
For Athens I say forth a gracious prophecy,
The glory of the sunlight and the skies

Shall bid from earth arise
Warm wavelets of new life and glad prosperity.

: ATHENA

Bdnold, with gracious heart well pleased

I for my citizens do grant

Fulfilment of this covenant :
And here, their wrath at length appeased,

These mighty deities shall stay,
For theirs it is by right to sway
The lot that rules our mortal day,

And he who hath not inly felt
Their stern decree, ere long on him,
Not knowing why and whence, the grim

Life-crushing blow is dealt.

The father's sin upon the child
Descends, and sin is silent death,
And leads him on the downward path,
N

THE FURIES

By stealth beguiled,
Unto the Furies : though his state
On earth were high, and loud his boast,
Victim of silent ire and hate

He dwells among the Lost.

CHORUS

To my blessing now give ear.
Scorching blight nor sing&d air l
Never blast thine olives fair !
Drouth, that wasteth bud and plant,
Keep to thine own place. Avaunt,
Famine fell, and come not hither
Stealthily to waste and wither !
Let the land, in season due,
Twice her waxing fruits renew ;
Teem the kine in double measure ;
Rich in new god-given treasure ;
Here let men the powers adore
For sudden gifts unhoped before !

ATHENA

O hearken, warders of the wall

That guards mine Athens, what a dower

Is unto her ordained and given !

For mighty is the Furies' power,

And deep-revered in courts of heaven

And realms of hell ; and clear to all
They weave thy doom, mortality !

And some in joy and peace shall sing ;

But unto other some they bring
Sad life and tear-dimmed eye.

1 See Milton, Comus, 1. 938.

THE FURIES 179

CHORUS

And far away I ban thee and remove,

Untimely death of youths too soon brought low !
And to each maid, O gods, when time is come for

love,

Grant ye a warrior's heart, a wedded life to know.
Ye too, O Fates, children of mother Night,
Whose children too are we, O goddesses
Of just award, of all by sacred right

Queens, V o in time and in eternity
Do rule, a present power for righteousness,

Honoured beyond all Gods, hear ye and grant my
cry!

ATHENA

And I too, I with joy am fain,
Hearing your voice this gift ordain
Unto my land. High thanks be thine,
Persuasion, who with eyes divine
Into my tongue didst look thy strength,
To bend and to appease at length

Those who would not be comforted.
Zeus, king of parley, doth prevail,
And ye and I will strive nor fail,

That good may stand in eviPs stead,
And lasting bliss for bale.

CHORUS

And nevermore these walls within
Shall echo fierce sedition's din,

Unslaked with blood and crime ;
The thirsty dust shall nevermore
Suck up the darkly streaming gore
Of civic broils, shed out in wrath

i8o THE FURIES

And vengeance, crying death for death !
But man with man and state with state
Shall vow The pledge of common hate
And common friendship, that for man
Hath oft made blessing out of oan>
Be ours unto all time?-

ATHENA

Skill they, or not, the path to find

Of favouring speech and presage kind ?

Yea, even from these, who, grim and stern,

Glared anger upon you of old,
O citizens, ye now shall earn

A recompense right manifold.
Deck them aright, extol them high,
Be loyal to their loyalty,

And ye shall make your town and land

Sure, propped on Justice' saving hand,
And Fame's eternity.

CHORUS

Hail ye, all hail ! and yet again, all hail,
O Athens, happy in a weal secured !

ye who sit by Zeus' right hand, nor fail
Of wisdom set among you and assured,

Loved of the well-loved Goddess-Maid ! the King
Of gods doth reverence you, beneath her guarding
wing.

ATHENA

All hail unto each honoured guest !
Whom to the chambers of your rest

1 The allusion is to the customary Hellenic formula for
offensive and defensive alliances "We will hold the sai.u,
friends and the same foes."

THE FURIES 181

'Tis mine feo'lead, and to provide
The hallowed torch, the guard and guide.
Pass down, tfce while these altars glow
With sacred fire, to earth below

And your appointed shrine.
There dwelling, from the land restrain
The force of fate, the breath of bane,
But waft on us the gift and gain

Of Victory divine !
And ye, the men of Cranaos* seed,
I bid y*>u now with reverence lead
These alien Powers that thus are made
Athenian evermore. To you
Fair be their will henceforth, to do

Whatever may bless and aid I

CHORUS

Hail to you all ! hail yet again,

All who love Athens, Gods and men,

Adoring her as Pallas' home !
Aiid while ye reverence what ye grant
My ^sacred shrine and hidden haunt
Blameless and blissful be your doom 1

ATHENA

Once more I praise the promise of your vows,
And now I bid the golden torches' glow
Pass down before you to the hidden depth
Of earth, by mine own sacred servants borne,
My loyal guards of statue and of shrine.
Come forth, O flower of Theseus' Attic land,
O glorious band of children and of wives,
And ye, O train of matrons crowned with eld I
Deck you with festal robes of scarlet dye

182 THE FURIES

In honour of this day : O gleamlrg torch,

Lead onward, that these gracious powers of earth

Henceforth be seen to bless the life of men,

\Athena leads the procession downwards into
the Cave of the Furies^ unaer Areopagus :
as they go, the escort of women and children
chant aloud.

CHANT

With loyalty we lead you ; proudly go,
Night's childless children, to your ho^p- below f
(O citizens ) awhile from words forbear /)
To darkness' deep primeval lair,
Far in Earth's bosom, downward fare,
Adored with prayer and sacrifice.
(O citizens, forbear your cries/)
Pass hither ward, ye powers of Dread,
With all your former wrath allayed,
Into the heart of this loved land ;
With joy unto your temple wend,
The while upon your steps attend

The flames that feed upon the brand
(NoWy now ring out your chant, your joy's acclaim/)
Behind them, as they downward fare,
Let holy hands libations bear,

And torches' sacred flame.
All-seeing Zeus and Fate come down
To battle fair for Pallas' town !
Ring out your chant, ring out your j of s acclaim /

\Exeunt

APPENDIX

EumenideS) IL 650-676, p. 167.

IT cannot be necessary to remind any scholar who may read
the foregoing translation, of the historical interest that
attaches to this passage, and, indeed, to the whole con-
clusion of The Furies. A mere reference to Grote's History
of Greece (\ol. IV. ch. xlvi.), to Mutter's Dissertation on the
EumenideSy and Oncken's Athen und Hellas, will suffice to
recall a vexed literary and historical problem, and the
conflict of doctors who disagree.

But those unacquainted with the literature and politics of
ancient Greece (and for such, of course, this translation is
mainly Intended) will hardly fail to have recognised, in the
last part of the concluding drama, a definitely political and
patriotic fervour which the legend of the House of Atreus
seems hardly calculated to arouse. The cause of Orestes is
decided in his favour ; but it is impossible to feel that the
theatrical interest of the drama is concentrated, as might be
expected, on his acquittal : it has been shifted to the Tribunal
of Areopagus, before which he is tried, and thence to the
destiny of the Athenian race and its dependence on celestial
and terrestrial deities.

The general explanation of this political turn and com-
plexion given to the play is simple enough ; the details are
involved in great obscurity : and the precise attitude of
s* mind to the politics of the day remains uncertain.

184 THE FURIES

The Senate of Areopagus was at this time the object of a
considerable popular jealousy. Of immemorial antiquity,
and strengthened by the memory of its courage and
patriotism at the time of the Persian invasion, it either had,
or was believed to have, become oligarchical in its opinions
and corrupt in its practice. Grote perhaps overstates the
case against the Areopagus ; and, in any case, his argument
that, because the senate at Sparta was corrupt, that at
Athens must have been so as well (Hist. IV. p. 105), should
be received with caution. But there is every reason to
trust his conclusion that the Areopagus, consisting almost
entirely of ex-ministers, and claiming large judicial, censorial,
and revisionary powers a claim based on undefined pre-
scription rather than on positive law was a tribunal "try
unlikely to satisfy an expanding and restless democracy.

Justly or unjustly, such a popular feeling arose against it,
and culminated in a measure passed, after much resistance,
by Ephialtes and Pericles, leaders of the popular party by
which the Areopagus was deprived of all its vague and
comprehensive powers, and retained only the jurisdiction
over homicide. This it was allowed to retain, not only on
political, but also on religious grounds; in Grote's words,
"the cognizance which it took of intentional homicide was a
part of old Attic religion."

It might appear that the whole tenor of The Furies is to
glorify the Areopagus in its hour of trial, and, consequently,
that the political leaning of ^Eschylus, in this point at any
rate, is obvious. Such a conclusion is, to some extent,
fortified by Aristophanes' sketch of ^schylus, in the Frogs %
as a stalwart cnampion and representative of old ideas.

On the other hand, it is plausibly urged that The Furie*
only glorifies the Areopagus as a tribunal for homicide, which
function was expressly retained for it by Ephialtes and
Pericles ; that the policy of an alliance with Argos, unmis-
takably commended towards the close of the play, was a
Periclean policy : in short, that /Eschylus is advocating, or

APPENDIX 185

cordially acquiring in, the Periclean ideas. It is even
suggested that his opposition is directed against a certain
reactionary innovation, so to speak, by which obsolete
privileges of the Areopagus were to be revived, and that the
close of The Furies is in reality an exhortation to all to be
content with the high though limited jurisdiction left to the
Areopagus, over matters of homicide.

There is here, it is plain, a literary and historical
problem of considerable complexity, with which I do not
think myself competent to deal. I will only hazard two
opinions, of a negative kind. First, that the text of The
Furies^ however closely scanned, is not decisive enough in
its allusions to enable us to measure the angle of ^Eschylus'
pol :f ical views with exactness. The solution of the problem
must be sought elsewhere, if indeed it be soluble.

Secondly, that it is an error to treat the political references
of a poet as -the responsible utterances of a political leader ;
lo demand the same consistency, or the same defence for
inconsistency, from the former as from the latter.

Men's attitude of mind towards policy or institutions,
secular or religious, comes under the cognisance of a poet
and thinker long before it develops into a political force, or
presents iany point, of support or resistance, to a politician.
From the speculative standpoint, a change, e.g., may be seen
to be salutary or necessary, but the motives for which it is
popularly demanded, base or dangerous. (No better illus-
tration of this can be found, perhaps, than in Coleridge's
Table Talk, and his attitude of mind towards reform, etc. )
It is for party-leaders, like Ephialtes and Pericles, to deal
strenuously and practically with the problems and forces of
Jhe hour ; it is for ^Eschylus, as for Plato, to point inde
pendently to the wide scope, for good or for evil, opened up
by political and judicial changes, or by a league with Argos.

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.

MACMILLAN'S CLASSICAL TRANSLATIONS.

JESOHYLUS. THf2 SUPPLICES. With Translation by T. G.

TUCKER, LituD. 8vo. IDS. 6d.
THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. With Translation by A. W.

VERRALL, Litt.D. 8vo. ys. 6d.
THE CHCEPHORI. With Translation by A. W. VERRALL, Litt.D.

8VO. T2S.

EUMENIDFS. With Verse Translation by BERNARD DRAKE, M. A.
8vo. 55.

ARISTOPHANES. THE BIRDS. Translated into English Verse by
B. H. KENNEDY. 8vo. 6s.

ARISTOTLE. THE FALLACIES ; or, The Sophistici Elenchi. With

Translation by E. POSTE, M.A. 8vo. 8s. 6d.
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE METAPHYSICS. Bya Cambridge

Graduate. 8vo. 55.

THE POLITICS. By Bishop WELLDON. Crown 8vo. IDS. 6d.
THE RHFTORIC. By Bishop WELLDON. Crown 8vo. 73. 6d.
THE NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. By Bishop WELLDON.

Crown 8vo. 75. 6d.
ON THE CONSTITUTION OF ATHENS. By E. POSTE.

Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 35. 6d.
1HE POETICS. By S. H. BUTCHER, Litt.D. 8vo. 125. 6d. net.

Text and Translation. 43. 6d. net.

BAOOHYLIDES.-A PROSE TRANSLATION. By E. POSTE, M.A.,
Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. 2s.

EURIPIDES.-THE TRAGEDIES IN ENGLISH VERSE. By

A. S. WAY, M.A. Three vols. Crown 8vo. 6s. net each.
ALCESTIS, HECUBA, MEDEA. Separately, sewed, is. 6d. each.

HERODOTUS. THE HISTORY. ByG. C. MACAULAY, M.A. Two

vols. Crown 8vo. i8s.

HOME*,. THE ODYSSEY DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE.
By S H. BUTCHER, M.A., and A. LANG, M.A. Crown 8vo.
7S. 6d. net.
THE ODYSSEY. BOOKS I.-X1I. Translated into English Verse

by EARL OF CARNARVON. Crown 8vo. 75. 6d.
THE ILIAD DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE. By ANDREW
LANG. WALTER LEAF, and ERNEST MYERS. Crown 8vo. 125. 6d.
THE ILIAD DONE INTO ENGLISH VERSE. By A. S. WAY,
M.A. Two vols. 410. los. 6d. net.

PAUSANIAS.-DESCRIPTION OF GREECE. By T. G. FRAZER,
M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Six vols. 8vo.
1265. net.

PINDAR. THE EXTANT ODES. By ERNEST MYERS. Crown
8vo. 53.

PLATO. THE TIMuEUS. With Translation by R. D. ARCHER-HIND,
M.A. 8vo. i6s.

POLYBIUS. THE HISTORIES. By E. S. SHUCKBURGH. Crown
8vo. 245.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

MACMILLAN'S CLASSICAL TRANSLATIONS.

SOPHOCLES. CEDIPUS THE KING. Translated into English
Verse by E. D. A. MORSHEAD, M.A. Fcap. 8vo. 33. 6d.

THEOCRITUS, BION, and MOSCHUS. By A. LANG, M. A. Pott 8vo.
as. 6d. net.

XBNOPHON. THE COMPLETE WORKS. By H. G. DAKYNS,
M.A. Crown 8vo. Vols I., II., and III. Part I. xos. 6d. each.
Vol. III. Part II. 53.

OIOBRO. LIFE AND LETTERS. By the Rev. G. E. JEANS, M.A.

Second Edition. Crown 8vo. IDS. 6d.
THE ACADEMICS. By J. S. REID. 8vo. 5 s. 6d.
IN DEFENCE OF CLUENTIUS. By W. PETERSON, M.A.
Crown 8vo. 53.

HORACE. THE WORKS OF HORACE. ByJ. LONSDALE,M.A.,

and S. LEE, M.A. Crown 8vo. 33. 6d.
THE ODES IN A METRICAL PARAPHRASF, By R. M

HOVENDBN, B.A. Extra fcap. Svo. 43. 6d.

THE EPODES TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE.
By A. S. WAY, M.A. Globe Svo. 23. net.

JUVENAL. THIRTEEN SATIRES OF JUVENAL. By ALEX.
LEEPER, LL.D. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 33. 6d.

LIVY. BOOKS XXI.-XXV. OF LIVY. The Second Punic War.
By A. J. CHURCH, M.A., and W. J. BRODRIBB, M.A. Crown 8vo.
73. 6d. BOOK XXI. Separately. Sewed, as.

MARCUS AURBLIUS ANTONINUS. BOOK IV. OF THE
MEDITATIONS. With Translation and Commentary. By H.
CROSSLEY, M.A. Svo. 6s.

MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS TO HIMSELF. An
English Version of the Works of Marcus Aurelius, with an Intro-
ductory Essay upon his place in Philosophy and relation f ^ other
Stoic teachers. By GERALD HENRY KENDALL, Litt.D., H^ac 1
Master of Charterhouse. Crown Svo. 6s.

PROPERTIUS. THE CYNTHIA DONE INTO ENGLISH
VERSE. By S. G. TREMENHEERE. Crown 8vo. 43. net.

SALLUST. THE CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE AND THE
JUGURTHINE WAR. By A. W. POLLARD. Crown 8vo. .6s.
CATILINE. 35,

TAOITUS.-THE WORKS. By A. J. CHURCH, M.A., and W. J.

BRODRIBB, M.A.

THE HISTORY. Crown Svo. 6s.
THE AGRICOLA AND GERMANIA. With the Dialogue on

Oratory. Crown Svo. 43. 6d.
DIALOGUE ON ORATORY. Crown 8vo. 45. 6d.
THE ANNALS. Crown Svo. 7 s. 6d.

VIRGIL, COMPLETE WORKS. By J. LONSDALE, M.A., and S.

LEE, M A. Crown Svo. 35. 6d.
THE ^ENEID. By J. W. MACKAIL, M.A. Crown Svo. 7 s. 6d.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

Serfea,

UNIFORMLY print^jl in Pott 8vo, with Vignette Titles by Sir NOEL

PATON, T. WOOLNER,W. HOLMAN HUNT, Sir J. E. MILLAIS,

ARTHUR HUGHE^, etc. Engraved on Steel. Bound in extra

cloth. Pott 8vo. as. 6d. net each.

THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF THE BEST SONGS AND
LYRICAL POEMS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

Selected and arranged, with Notes, by FRANCIS TURNER
PALGRAVE.

THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF THE BEST SONGS AND
LYRICAL POEMS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
Selected and arranged, with Notes, by FRANCIS TURNER
, PALGR.-\v ( fy Second Series.

%* The Two Series, in cloth box. 55. net.

LYRIC LOVE : An Anthology. Edited by W. WATSON.

PORT'S WALK : An Introduction to English Poetry. Chosen and
arranged by MOWBRAY MORRIS.

THE CHILDREN'S , GARLAND FROM THE BEST POETS.
Selected 4 imd arranged by COVENTRY PATMORB.

THE CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF LYRICAL POETRY.
Arranged by F. T. PALGRAVE.

THE JEST BOOK. The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings. Selected
and ra-ranged by MARK LEMON.

JTIjE 'iTAIRY BOOK. The Best Popular Fairy Stories. Selected and
rendered anew by the Author of " John Halifax, Gentleman."

A BOOK OF GOLDEN THOUGHTS. By HENRY ATTWELL,
" Knight of the Order of the Oak Crown."

THE SUNDAY BOOK OF POETRY FOR THE YOUNG.

Selected and arranged by C. F. ALEXANDER.

GOLDEN TREASURY PSALTER. Student's Edition. Being an
Edition with briefer Notes of " The Psalms Chronologically
Arranged." By FOUR FRIENDS.

t THE BOOK OF PRAISE. From the best English Hymn Writers.
Selected and arranged by the EARL OF SELBORNE.

THEOLOGIA GERMANICA. Translated from the German by
SUSANNA WINKWORTH. With a Preface by CHARLES KINGSLEY.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

TTreasurs series o*****

THE BALLAD BOOK. A Selection of the Cl Dicest British Ballads.
Edited by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.

THE SONG BOOK. Words and Tunes from the best Poets and
Musicians. Selected and arranged by JOHN HULL AH.

LA LYRE FRANQAISE. Selected and arranged, with Notes, by
GUSTAVE MASSON.

BALLADEN UND ROMANZEN. The Golden Treasury of the Best
German Ballads and Romances. Selected and arranged by {Dr.
BUCHHEIM.

DEUTSCHE LYRIK. The Golden Treasury of the Best German
Lyrical Poems. Selected and arranged, with Notes and Literary
Introduction, by Dr. BUCHHEIM.

SELECTIONS FROM ADDISON. Edited by J. R. GREEN, M.A.,
LL.D.

MATTHEW ARNOLD'S SELECTED POEMS.

BACON'S ESSAYS, AND COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
With Notes and Glossarial Index. By W. ALDIS WRIGHT, M.A.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S RELIGIO MEDICI ; LETTER TO
A FRIEND, ETC., AND CHRISTIAN MORALS. Edited by
W. A. GREENHILL, M.D. Oxon.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S HYDRIOTAPHIA, AND THE
GARDEN OF CYRUS. Edited by W. A. GKEENHILL, M.D.
Oxon.

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS FROM THIS WORxJ) TO
THAT WHICH IS TO COME. By JOHN BUNYAN.

POETRY OF BYRON. Chosen and arranged by MATTHEW
ARNOLD.

SELECTIONS FROM THE POEMS OF ARTHUR HUGH
CLOUGH.

LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER. Edited, with Introduction,
by Rev. W. BENHAM, B.D., F.S.A.

SELECTIONS FROM COWPER'S POEMS. With an Introduction
by Mrs. OLIPHANT.

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. Edited from the
Original Edition, by J. W. CLARK, M.A.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

<&oR>ett\Ueea8ttrg Series continued.

BALTHAZAR GRA*IAN'S ART OF WORLDLY WISDOM.
Translated by JOSEPH JACOBS.

HEINE'S LIEDER UND GEDICHTE. Selected and edited, with
an Introduction and Notes, by Dr. C. A. BUCHHEIM.

HERRICK: SELECTIONS FROM THE LYRICAL POEMS.
Arranged, with Notes, by F. T. PALGRAVE.

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS. By THOMAS HUGHES.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF JOHN KEATS. Edited by F. T.
PALGRAVE.

THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. By J. KEBLE. With Introduction by
t C. M. YONC-R.

LAMB'S TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. Edited by the Rev.
A. AINGEK, M.A.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. SELECTIONS FROM THE
WRITINGS OF. Arranged and edited by SIDNEY COLVIN.

MOHAMMED THE SPEECHES AND TABLE TALK OF
THE PROPHET. Chosen and translated, with Introduction and
Notes, by STANLEY LANE POOLE.

THE CAVALIER AND HIS LADY. Selections from the Works
of the First Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. With an Introduc-
tory Essay by EDWARD JENKINS, Author of " Ginx's Baby," etc.

R-&BAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM, the Astronomer -Poet of
Persia. Rendered into English Verse.

MISCELLANIES (INCLUDING EUPHRANOR, POLONIUS,
ETC.). By EDWARD FITZGERALD.

TWO ESSAYS ON OLD AGE AND FRIENDSHIP. Trans-
lated from the Latin of Cicero, with Introduction,* by E. S.
SHUCKBURGH.

AESCHYLUS. THE HOUSE OF ATREUS. Translated by
E. D. A. MORSHEAD, M.A.

MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS TO HIMSELF. An English
Version of the Works of Marcus Aurelius. By Rev. Dr. GERALD
HENRY RENDALL, Headmaster of Charterhouse.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

(Bolben tlteasurp Sertes Continued.

THE REPUBLIC OF PLATO. Translated in 3 English, with Notes,
by J. LL. DAVIES, M.A., and D. J. VAUGHAN; M.A.

THE TRIAL AND DEATH OF SOCRATES. Being the
Euthyphron, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Plato. Translated into
English by F. J. CHURCH.

PHAEDRUS, LYSIS, AND PROTAGORAS OF PLATO. A New
Translation by J. WRIGHT.

SHAKESPEARE'S SONGS AND SONNETS. Edited by F. T.
PALGRAVE.

POEMS OF SHELLEY. Edited by STOPFORD A. r * OKE, M.A.
SOUTHEY'S POEMS. Selected and arranged by E. DOWDEN.

LYRICAL POEMS. By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. Selected and
annotated by F. T. PALGRAVE.

IN MEMORIAM. By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
THE PRINCESS. By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

THEOCRITUS, BION, AND MOSCHUS. Rendered into English
Prose by ANDREW LANG.

POEMS, RELIGIOUS AND DEVOTIONAL. By J, G. WHI-TL. R.

POEMS OF WORDSWORTH. Chosen and edited, with Preface,
by MATTHEW ARNOLD.

A BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS OF ALL TIMES AND ALL
COUNTRIES. Gathered and narrated anew. By C. M. YONGE,
Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe."

A BOOK OF WORTHIES. By the Author of " The Heir of Red-
clyflfe."

THE STORY OF THE CHRISTIANS AND THE MOORS IN
SPAIN. By the Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe." With Vignette
by HOLM AN HUNT.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.